The Long Winding Path of Fate
by Kaleopolitus
Summary: Matthew/Karis. Aka Dawnshipping. This story will tell you what actually happened in between certain events, or even during them. Matthew traverses the world with his fellow adepts. But to save the world - or to save one person?
1. Chapter 1: Glimmer of Hope

**Authors note:**

Well this is it... My very first piece of work. I'm kind of happy how the whole idea flowed straight out of my head and I think it'll form a nice base to get used to the personalities i'm giving the three main characters in the story as well as get an idea for what they actually would carry with them on their long journeys. (Yeah right just a jacket. Umad?)

Since it's the first chapter of my first story, I'll be taking any and all advices gladly. What would you have included? What would you have changed? Be nice, punctuate and most of all be constructive and I might just make something nice out of this.

This will be a Matthew/Karis story inspired by TheOneAndOnlyT's The Angel and the Slayer (Amazing story, check it out!). I've seen a lot of Matthew/Sveta stories so far but that one just doesn't appeal to me. She's a nice character, don't hate, but it's just not the same as good 'ol childhood pairing.

Have fun reading this – if it's possible!

**Chapter 1: Glimmer of Hope.**

Something was off. Everywhere around the young adepts, figures were moving in the shadows. Were they monsters? Cave inhabitants? Simple wildlife?

It didn't matter to Tyrell at any rate - He had found his limit of patience of them scuffling in the shadows. He yelled through the cave, raised sword in his right hand and a fireball in his left.  
"Come out already! I'll burn you down days before we will ever play along in hide and seek!" he yelled. Matthew glared at Tyrell scornfully, which he noticed, but chose to ignore.

Nothing happened though, the figures had ceased moving altogether after Tyrell yelled out and as the young adepts came closer, what they thought had been alive turned out to be mere stones, boulders and walls within this dreadfully large cave that they have been in for the past three hours.

"This can't be a good sign. I just don't like the feeling of this. What do you think?" Karis asked. But neither of her friends could really answer that question. All Matthew could do was to keep them going, so he turned around to his friends, and with a nod, resumed their attempts at finding the cave exit.

Yet no avail, the young adepts continued walking for several hours, passing through areas they have been before and caves they could swear not a soul would have ever seen before. But not an exit to be found. Eventually, the adepts' internal clocks cried for the mercy of rest. Especially Tyrell seemed awfully tired. The group had relied on him for a light source the entire time and the fire adepts' psynergy reserves were waning away as he depleted his strength in order to maintain vision.

Without warning, Matthew turned around. He inspected his two friends with a distinctly disappointed frown. Karis and Tyrell both stopped their march behind their leader wondering exactly why he had stopped. Whilst Tyrell looked away, inspecting one of the many dark side routes they had already passed and had no idea where those would lead, Karis stared right into Matthews concerned yet vibrant eyes, his shadow flickered against a wall behind him next to hers. Tyrell's would be on the wall behind them since he was third in the line.

Then she realized what Matthew already knew.

They had hit a dead end once more. A large stone wall, was blocking their path.

Matthew sighed, looking over his friends towards where they had come from as he spoke: "It should be night outside right now... Unless you've got a clue, Karis, I say we use this small dead end as a campsite." He looked down at the wind adept and, not to his surprise, she turned her head the other way. She knew it as well. Tyrell was much too drained to be of much tactical help, if he ever was. So it was down to the two of them to plan their movements. Yet neither had a clue, so all she could do was silently look away and in such, admit not knowing how to proceed.

Matthew sighed, and it became silent for a few moments. "Let's setup camp here then. Karis, you put down the tents whilest I look for anything left over in he cave around this part, maybe I can make some kind of small wall to ward monsters. There were plenty of decently sized stones back there. Tyrell, you just rest, light one of the candles if you can't keep it up anymore. Just be carefull. We're already down to the last three." To that, Karis nodded, and Tyrell grunted as if Matthew just belittled his best friend. They were silent for a moment, as if waiting on Matthew to continue neither Karis nor Tyrell spoke a word. But a few seconds later Karis turned around with a sigh, and dropped her bag from her back.

The boys dropped their bags aswell, Tyrell took a seat against the wall of the dead end, taking a well earned rest as Karis began unpacking their bags, placing the various items in the corner and then began assembling the tent with the components from everyone's bags in the left corner, two meters from Tyrell.

Matthew nodded and turned around. As he walked away he waved behind him saying: "I'll be back in a bit with something useful. Don't go eating dinner without me." He traversed back into the darkness, his yellow scarf the last thing either could see before he dissappeared. Long had Matthew been training his psynergy. And since some time he could use it to guide his steps. Unfortunately he was too inexperienced to find the exit at this distance. He could only plan his steps close to him.

In the meantime, Tyrell had lit one of the candles and placed it in the middle of their little hideaway, as he munched on a piece of bread that he took out of his personal provisions. He glanced at Karis as he ripped off another piece of the bread loaf. Her shadow danced across the wall as she secured the tents base.

Tyrell stared at her - her features were showing off in the light and she looked quite pretty in this light. Her body has been forming nicely and though she'd not win a beauty queen, she was definitely a good looking girl. These thoughts raced through Tyrell's head as he realized just how _much_ she had grown up over time. They had known each other since they were but baby's. And despite her growing up so much he never really did look at her as a girl. But after a full month of traveling the land, Tyrell noticed that this was despite it all, still the case.

The fire adept rested his head against the rocky wall, muttering as he hit a small jut of rock instead of the vertical wall he was expecting. As he broke it off, smoothing the wall behind him, he muttered to himself. But Karis had good ears.

She turned her head from securing the last part of the tent, still squatted down as she looked at Tyrell with a curious look. "Talking to the wall Tyrell? Or plotting with the monsters?" She said, a giggle following.

Tyrell turned around and unexpectedly kept his cool as he spoke brashly and quickly, but without forethought.

"Nah. Talking with some ghosts. They're nice guys, told us we're doomed and everything. That death is coming to claim us and that this place has worse things than even demons..." He grinned wildly, almost looking like a maniac. Mission success it seemed as Karis was taken aback, he could see fear fluttering through her eyes as he mentally hit his own face, wondering why he had gone so far as to scare her for no reason but his pride. After a moment of silence he spoke up in an attempt to fix the damage.

"I'm joking. I'm just joking. Geez, whats with that look when I'm talking about _ghosts_!

A smile returned to her face, it was clearly faked but the fact that she went to the effort to do so meant Tyrell had indeed managed to save a bad case of fear. He sighed, laying his head back on the wall as he took another bite from the bread loaf.

Then he realized, none of them had stopped growing up. They were all getting older, and more mature by the years. Except for their parents maybe - though he still did not get all that Golden Sun effect talk. The fire adept relaxed against the wall, ready to take a small nap as Karis got the dead end ready to serve as a campsite.

**Authors note:**

And that was it... For the first chapter. I've got two more written and undergoing rewrites and spell checks. I'll be changing them according to the sanest advice you guys give me!

**Special Note:**

What I _especially_ need right now, is some advice on conversations. Personally I'm as direct as a bullet, no jibber jabber b******t whatsoever. That makes writing longer conversations extremely hard for me since I am unable to put myself into that situation properly.

Any and all advice is welcomed on this topic.


	2. Chapter 2: Hide and Seek

**UPDATE:**

Apologies everyone. Due to using a new program to write in, the text morphed without me noticing.

I have NO clue what caused this but this ought to fix it. Again, my apologies, I never noticed.

**UPDATE²: **Right, so WHY was the spelling messed up? Don't ask me, I know I fixed it before but all I can think of is that I forgot to save the file before uploading. Kind of embarrassing!

At any rate, this is Chapter Two in it's arguably finished form.

**Author's note: **Huzzah! Another chapter! Well feast your eyes it's going slower from now on. Last chapter of the prologue.

Enjoy.

**Chapter Two: Hide and seek.**

"Was something there? Why can't I feel it?" he thought.

Something was definitely off. Up until now his earth powers have let him sense anything close to him. Be it the floor, the walls or even the moles above his head. He could essentially walk through a forest with his eyes closed without tripping! So why is it that he could -hear- footsteps but not feel them?

He turned around, his hand on the hilt of his sword as he stared blankly ahead of him in utter darkness... "There's no way I can fight what I can neither see nor feel... The elements are these things?" He thought as he heard the footsteps again - this time much closer then before.

And then, from the cold dark of the cave, he heard growling followed by quickening footsteps, getting louder by the second. Matthew's eyes widened and his face grimaced true fear as he realized something WAS there! Something he had no way of beating! Swiftly he scanned the way back to the dead-end-camp they had put up, memorizing it in the few seconds he had. Then as the growling

sounds and footsteps seemed at its closest, he ran. He ran and he ran, using his psynergy to drop rocks from the roof as he went to help him escape. Occasionally he could hear a loud, near ear deafening cry follow by some weeping sounds as he dropped another one. But he didn't notice. That was just one, if at all and the sounds of footsteps never seemed to lessen. Even when he collapsed an entire tunnel section behind him, it did not seem to end. So he sprinted on through the cave towards help.

Karis was done preparing the tent and the 'campsite' under the ground and was cooking up dinner along with Tyrell, whom had regained his strength to do something the moment the stakes were raised to warm food. Suddenly, odd crashing sounds could be heard from the tunnel. First faintly,

so that neither of them heeded it. But as it came closer and closer, inevitably they became worried. Tyrell dropped the cooking spoon in the pot and grabbed for his long sword, taking a few steps ahead of Karis in the tunnel where Matthew had been planning his wall idea. One hand on the hilt and the other on the sheath as the sounds came closer.

"What the blazing fires was that? Are the monsters running into walls or something?" the fire adept asked. "Maybe they learned that from you..." Karis said with a giggle, to which Tyrell glanced over his right shoulder at her with a grin, hands still on his sword in front of him. "Yeah. Maybe you're

right."

He ran, like the living devil he ran for it. It was a straight piece of cave now bent slightly downhill and only a small bend at the end of it to reach the campsite he had assigned. Matthew wasn't some kind of delusional hero. He knew that whatever was behind him would've outrun him a long time ago if he didn't drop all those rocks and use his surroundings to his advantage. But his Psynergy was beginning to run out so he had to conserve the amount of rocks and spires he could still drop! This meant they were slowly catching up to him. Vaulting over a rock cropping he noticed a light source from just around the corner ahead of him. He made it! As he ran he took one final big breath, yelling to his friends for aid.

"Tyrell, Karis! Trouble!" he yelled just as he came around the corner. Karis and Tyrell stared at him in his furious running. Unsure what to think, yet Matthew's face could've filled entire books. Joyous at finding his friends, anger for whatever was behind him, fear for whatever was behind him... There were no need for words to tell them these things. As Tyrell spotted his friend, he drew his long sword, throwing the sheath aside against the wall as he went forward. Tyrell nodded at Matthew as they past each other, he swiftly created a wall of flames along the cave, preventing the monsters from passing through. They knew Tyrell was a capable fire adept, but the fire had nothing

to sustain itself on. Inevitably it would go out soon. Matthew turned around as he slowed down came to a halt, he nodded at Karis behind him, like he always did when they were about to fight.

She was stunned, they were all used to the group being under danger from monsters, but never had they been trapped like this before. Nor had she ever seen Matthew this panicked. She stood there for a moment as she pondered this, before nodding back at Matthew and grabbing her bow. She was no real marksmen with it - but she could hit her targets in between her psynergy casting and it

definitely put her at an advantageous range versus melee combat.

When the earth adept saw the nod she gave him, he went back to the front and stood beside his childhood friend, sword drawn for whatever was coming. When Karis joined them behind them, he nudged to Tyrell to drop the fire wall.

He dropped the fire wall at Matthew's request, prepared for anything to come right at them.

Yet there was nothing. The torch's fire flared behind them, creating a play of shadows on the walls ahead of them. There was nothing there. Tyrell turned to Matthew, sheer anger painting his face as he lowered his long sword. "Matthew. What the elements are you doing?" he asked, trying to keep his calm which was definitely not his strong suit. But Matthew never ripped his eyes off of that dark cave... He ignored his friends' rants which were only stopped by a timely intervention from the wind adept, who had noticed his shock.

Karis had seen Matthew like this twice before. Once when they were still very

young, and Tyrell had played a joke on him faking him jumping off a cliff side,

and the other time when during a visit of all five to Carvers shop

(incidentally Tyrell would burn the place down one month later), he had lost

everyone else in another prank of Tyrell's. It was right there that she knew

his biggest fear of all, was being alone.

Matthew bit his lip. How would he explain what happened in there? The sounds? They could've been echoes from miles away. Did he justly panic and cause his friends so much stress by yelling for help? He pondered how to respond. The earth adept glanced at Karis, whom simply stood there, bow loosely in her left hand as she looked at him. A scornful look he thought. He sheathed his sword as he looked back to Tyrell."Yeah. Must've been the echoes freaking me out."

Tyrell nodded back at him - what was there to say?

At least they're back together. Obviously Matthew had nothing for his small wall idea though so that idea fell to the background. The adepts moved back to the cooking pot, where Karis quickly served the meal for everyone before it overcooked on the fire. Gratefully, the boys accepted

the mushroom soup and indulged themselves in their hunger.

She could easily see it, the boys were beat. Tyrell for supplying a light source for so long to save their few torches and candles and Matthew from his madman's dash and rock dropping. As they finished their meals, she nodded at the boys and their nightly routine commenced. She went into the tent to change into her night gown and instinctively the boys turned around and stared at the bend in the cave. Sure, the boys had their male desires to peek. One could never truly get rid of that. But for one they both simply respected her wishes too much and she'd also leave nothing behind of you if she found out.

It was a pleasantly easy decision to not.

A few minutes later, Karis came back out of the tent in her night gown. A nice light purple one-piece with white ornamental thread running through the gown from top to bottom.

"The ussual shift?" She asked, snapping the boys out of their staring trance. Matthew was the first to turn around. "That sounds best for now indeed."Tyrell turned around, hesitant to speak he added: "Fine. First shift's on me then."

Matthew stood up from the fire and passed by Karis, whom smiled awkwardly as he passed her. Karis went to sit by the fire and talk about Matthew's yelps for help as she waited for Matthew to shift into his dark blue boxers and yellow sleeveless shirt, his sleeping clothes.

Karis glanced over her shoulder at the closed tent, whispering to Tyrell: "So why do you think he came running like an army was behind him?" Tyrell shrugged. "Matthew ain't crazy. Not yet. And he can feel whatever is around him, he could fight a wolf in pitch dark and win. So if he had to run like crazy and yell like that, it'd have been something bad I figured." He looked at Karis briefly, he only just noticed that she had already untied her ponytail, so that her green hair was hanging loosely along her back. She had nice silky hair, which was only ruined by the dirt specks throughout it. Even combing wouldn't get those out.

Karis decided to stare up at the roof instead as the conversation died out for both simultaneously. After a few minutes she continued: "But there was nothing there. Do you think it's still down that hall? It managed to freak even Matthew out." A slight tone of fright managed to break through as she said that but Tyrell couldn't blame her. Why _didn't_ it, or those things, try to attack them once he dropped the flame well? "I know what you mean. Just get your rest though. No need to lay awake all night fussing like that." the fire adept said. Karis smiled broadly at him in a thank you for the pick-me-up talk, which almost made him blush at the sight. Damn she _was_ pretty, especially with he hair out long he thought. He knew of himself that he would make a move on her if it wasn't for that darned incident three years back... She knew it and he knew it. Nothing would ever happen between those two. Not even on the short term. So instead he had decided that he'd nudge her to Matthew instead and see what would happen.

His thought train was interrupted however by the opening of the tent. Both of them turned around to stare at the yellow haired and yellow shirted boy that said that he was done before going back in. Karis slowly got up, said her good nights to Tyrell since she had third shift and went into the tent to get some sleep.

The three shifts, since you couldn't call it night underground, passed swiftly and without much trouble. At one point Tyrell could have sworn he heard something shuffling but Matthew explained to him, that that was just them turning around in bed, the next day.

Upon the end of each's shift, they all got up again. They packed the small campsite and under Matthew's leadership they traversed deeper into the tunnels. After some time, Matthew felt it. A direct path to the exit! They had finally gotten out of that horrible tunnel and would see daylight once more.

**Author's note:**

Well ain't this quite the anti climax? Did you expect to find Dullahan down there? Nu-uh. The last thing I want is to change a shipping story into a dramatic fight for survival. Admit it, whom of you would have liked it if I did that? And no worries. The moving shadows and what attacked Matthew will all be explained in time.

For those who didn't realize it the chapter title refers to how they're 'hiding out' in their camp site and how whatever is out there hides from plain sight as well and only seems to come out away from the camp.

From now on chapter releases'll take more time. This was more or a less the opening and it'll be more difficult for me to write from now on.

I could STILL very much use some help with the conversations. If anyone feels they can live into the role of Karis pretty well, a small role play style talk would probably give me a lot of ideas for the future so I eagerly await anyone willing to fill this role. Obviously, you'd be credited for the help.

P.S. The reason for the "I'ma feelin' da earth" part is because Isaac LITERALLY refers to that ability in the game. Personally, I hate it, but it allows me to make Matthew a bit more.. Competent.


	3. Chapter 3: Sanctuary

**Authors note:**

Pro tip: Sveta has 3 different types of beast form! Google it, her power in beast form increases by a tremendous amount of you give her the right djinn.

Easter Egg:

Tyrell yelled loudly as the monsters came closer: "BANKAI!" and suddenly all the monsters died from severe awesomeness and were shortly after replaced by a Dullahan which whooped his ass.

On to the serious talk. People have been wondering this and I suppose it's actually plausible to be otherwise, but this does NOT take place after the main story. Though I actually really like that idea now, I'm not going to rewrite two chapters to match that idea.

This story follows the group on their journey through Weyard in Dark Dawn and simply elaborates on a relationship between Karis and Matthew.

**Chapter Three: Sanctuary**

"Harapa." The Mercury adept said, pointing at what seemed nothing more than more trees behind which the path should lead them. But it was indeed only just visible, a section of a large, slightly crumbled wall was right there just above the leaves, maybe a kilometer or two away. Everyone sighed in gratitude that their long hike was almost over.

Rief, son of Mia, now added to the group of adepts, had led them along mountains and beaches and through forests both small and large to reach Harapa - the first city both after the now collapsed tunnel and for the three childhood friends to ever see.

"There's junk everywhere on the sides of the town. Alright, we'll meet up at the large building near the edge of the town in four hours." Matthew with determination. Rief gazed over the town from the edge whilest Tyrell got a head start and ran wide and proud into the town.

Rief looked a the Venus adept. They had gotten used to it by now that Rief wasn't too capable of hiding what he thought or felt, and this time was no different. You could easily see the disappointment in his eyes and face. This didn't escape Matthew.

"Just a little break Rief. It's not that much time loss. Can you go tell Tyrrel to buy provisions for a week of traveling in my stead?" Matthew spoke absentmindedly.

"Sure. If I can catch up with that energetic hothead." Rief responded with a saddened sling to it. He definitely meant what he said, Rief wasn't in the best physical condition. He was much more aligned toward being a caster adept, using psynergy to pelt his enemies from afar rather than get up close with weapons like Tyrell and Matthew always did.

The Jupiter adept sighed. "If he causes trouble, you've got my okay to drench him." Karis suggested, causing Rief to grin in an almost diabolical way... One could see the idea was indeed tempting him.

"Right - meet at the tower in four hours. I'll go tell Tyrell first of all..." Rief said after a silence that lasted two and a half minutes. Matthew nodded and saw Rief off as the Mercury adept made his way down into the city's bustling crowds, leaving him and Karis alone at the entrance to the town.

Karis looked over at Matthew, whom was staring over the busy city and inspecting it's layout.

_"Always the leader, huh."_ she thought to herself.

"Hey Matthew? It's nicer to look at the city up close..." She said, nudging towards the sandy road which led towards the market street and ended in the town's square, doubtlessly the busiest of them all since both people and cattle led by breeders were scurrying all over the place and it looked like just making your way through it would be a major hassle.

The earth adept turned around to look at her. A broad smile grimaced his face as he replied. "Yeah. Sounds better. Let's go."

A few minutes of pushing people and squeezing in between crows later, they arrived at the center of the town. "Wow, the area is pretty arid, that fountain must be a blessing to these people." Karis commented as they arrived near the center of the city where a rather large fountain stood. "Still... It's a bit _big_." she continued.

Matthew grinned without turning as they made their way past the fountain and passed into what seemed to be a street dedicated to trinkets, armor, weapons and, oddly enough, florists. There were shops of all sorts - most of them rubbish for anything but they were probably for tourists or travelers Matthew figured.

A smile crossed his face as Karis ran right off towards one of the stalls which had glittering necklaces, rings and bracelets of all sizes and shapes. If there was one thing she could never resist when in a shop, it was jewelry. She started picking through the various jewelry, trying on anything she thought she might like even the slightest bit that could be found in the stall.

The Venus adept decided to follow her and see what she was fussing about at the stall, and just as he arrived she turned around to him having put on different earrings.

"What do you think?" She asked right off the bat, a happy wide smile covering her face. He had no clue what she was referring though - he failed to notice the earrings.

"Mm, nice..." he responded, not knowing what she was talking about. Before he could even find out what it was, she went on. "I knew it!" she yelped happily.

What was she cheering about, Matthew thought, it's doubtful it's that spectacular. Whatever it is. But it didn't matter. A moment of staring at each other later she smiled and turned around to pass fifty-seven gold coins worth over to the stall vendor. _"Whats with her?"_ he thought.

The two adepts continued their way along the street, but speed was not with them - Karis was distracted at nearly every stall they walked past. But Matthew didn't mind. It was kind of fun to see her so happy and go-lucky and he liked watching it and making her ha- "Wait, what'd I just think?" he interrupted his thought process as he stopped walking. "I- Freaky" The young boy shook off his confusion at his own thoughts and sped up to catch up to her.

Three hours passed, during which they had visited a large portion of the shops.

The large city bell, situated just thirty meter from the town square, rang six times, audible throughout the city.

"_We've been walking for three hours, my feet are killing me... Where does she get the energy from?"_ he thought. Yet he dreaded asking that question, he knew he wouldn't get anything out of except for her frowning at him.

He spoke up. "You know... The bell rang six times just now Karis. So that means three hours have passed. We really should get back to the meeting place soon."

She sighed as she turned to him with a sigh as they walked through one of the streets. "Sheesh. Already? So whats the plan Matthew. Are we trucking out tonight or are we staying the night?" she responded with a hint of sadness behind her tone.

Matthew stared ahead at the rising stairs in front of them as they walked on, pondering the question. He was cut off however just as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Aah! What a coincidence! Now we can walk to meet Tyrell together." a crisp almost squeaky voice spoke behind them. It was hard not to recognize the voice which had interrupted them, somehow it had irritated Matthew. "Ooh. _Rief_. Yeah. Of course, why don't you." he responded briskly.

Karis looked up at him surprised. Both asked themselves the same question – why'd he respond so hostile? He was a friend after all. An ally in their fights. Rief did not care though and continued as if he had not at noticed. He moved to the other side of Matthew as they walked on down the streets of Harapa to meet up with Tyrell.

Fifteen minutes later, the adepts were on the other side of the city.

"Matthew! You said it was through these alleys and down this road, now, why am I seeing the tower on the other side of the town!" Karis exclaimed as they stopped once more to get their bearings.

"You're too dependent on me, I told you, there's too many people in this city! I can't make out a damn thing in this place." the Venus adept snarled back as he inspected the city from a ledge. "Tsk..." was all she responded with, turning away not knowing what to say.

"Not your best act ever Matthew. I told you we should've taken that turn right..." Rief commented.

This wasn't what Karis needed right now. For some reason him criticizing Matthew made here really mad. He had no just reason to criticize someone in those shoes! "Yeah of course Rief, except that that would've led us _out_ of the city."

Now Rief was getting irritated as well, he moved towards a house an leaned against it as he spoke. "At least we wouldn't have been across the entire city like when he leads."

This last one the Jupiter adept took badly. "Oh really? So you'd rather be out in the wilds tha-"

Matthew interrupted. "**Guys!** That's enough. We'll follow the main street back down, then take the street on our front right. We'll keep walking till the town wall and then we'll just go left until we reach the tower. Alright, now do you really want Tyrell to be the first one there? Really, he'll never stop about it? So can we get a move on then?" he intervened with a stern and powerful voice, catching Rief completely off guard as he only managed to mumble an apology and walked ahead of the group.

At first she glared at him angrily for his interrupting her. But what was the point she thought, her anger subsiding, she walked on ahead of Matthew back into the alleys following his instructions.

"_What the elements am I doing..."_ She thought. _"Why am I getting so mad every single time it's about Matthew and when he... Does something wrong."_

It had happened three times before now but she just didn't get why.

There was no reason to think about it so much she figured though, so she shook the thoughts out of her head as they finally reached the tower, no more than three minutes to spare.

"Well, at least Tyrell ain't first." Matthew commented as they arrived. The large tower towered above them from inside the city wall, no more than thirty feet between it and the houses.

Twelve minutes later Tyrell came walking up to the group casually, ignoring that he was late. "Hey, guys, whats the plan for the night?" he asked as if nothing was wrong.

He wasn't received coldly though. Matthew called out to him. "Hey, Tyrell, took you're sweet time."

"Yeah, I know, these alleys are confusing." He responded as he arrived at the group, coming to a standstill as he eyed everyone over.

"Right guys, I've decided we're staying the night here. We've gone a long time with no good nights rest, time to catch up." He said to the group as they gathered around him.

Karis was the first to respond. "Finally, a nice warm bath followed by a comfortable bed..."

"Right." Matthew continued. "There's just one thing. Tyrell, you know what I'm talking about but this'll be new for Rief. Shared bedrooms. What's the plan? We can't rent an additional room just for you Karis. That'd be too much on our poor finances. So, one of us'll be sleeping in the same room as you."

Immediately Karis snapped out. "You _know_ I don't want Tyrell in my room Matthew, don't even put that up for a possibility." Matthew rolled his eyes. "You still haven't told me what happened between-" he said but Jupiter adept interrupted him before he could finish. "And I'm not going to. Nor is Tyrell. _Right, _Tyrell?" Tyrellnodded at her whilest as he mumbled something about changing and it being an accident.

"You know... I don't know... It kind of sounds weird. Sleeping in one room with a- a girl." Rief said as the group had fallen silent for a short moment. Everyone turned their heads to him in surprise.

Matthew looked at him with a large degree of surprise and a slight hint of amusement. "So... You want to opt out for it then?" Matthew said. Rief simply nodded back at him, blushing like a tomato at what he just told them.

"That leaves me I guess Karis. No problems right?" Matthew asked as he turned to her, deciding not to tease the younger boy for it.

A small distinct red blush came to her cheeks as she thought of the idea. So far she had always had separate rooms for her, in the Cabin, in inns and even their tent had a fabric they could use to separate one side of the tent from another. This would be one of her few times ever sharing a room directly with anyone other than her mother. "Y-yeah. That... That's, uh, fine, you know... Ahem..." Her face started to glow even more, why was she stuttering?

Tyrell came to her rescue out of the embarrassing sentence. "Uh yeah. That's sorted then? Do we actually have an inn at this hour that's still open for booking?"

"There's one a short walk from here that I asked around in. We should still be able to book in for the night." Matthew responded. Everyone nodded and as the conversation seemed over, they made their way towards the inn in question.

Wide awake.

He was sweating, his heart was pumping faster than it ever had before and he had long ago kicked off the sheets... He had woken up from a nightmare... But the Venus adept could not remember what it was save for very small details; tall men in armor, people on the ground all around him, unable to move. And everything, had a tint of red. He laid back on his pillow with his head, he was slowly calming down, his breathing calmed down. _"What was that..."_ He pondered to himself as he lay there, staring at the solid rock ceiling. He repeated that question in his head until he his exhaustion demanded his body to asleep once more...

**Author's Note:**

Right, first of all, no. I am not saying Matthew has the power of foresight. He had a nightmare. Don't we all? If you think about the details given you can determine what happened in the nightmare. Just think Golden Sun style and the way I'm portraying Matthew.

Also, there was SO much I wanted to put into this chapter. But I decided I'd be overdoing it in just the first city that way so I had to cut out a lot of really good material for later. So no worries! The ideas are still there!

One thing to note is that I'm replaying the game along the speed of the story, so that I can make direct references to what happens inside the game. (I haven't found any Golden Sun Dark Dawn site yet that's fully updated for the events in DD...)

I aimed to end this chapter on a cliffhanger, and I'm not going to say anything else about it just yet.


	4. Chapter 4: Fate Denied

**Something to get off of my mind.**

Lord Destroyer,

I understand what your saying, but how come that when I turn the town into a bustling city when it's originally a five building town (or close enough), you don't mind but you do mind when she has a _bow_. 0.0

It's TRUE that it's out of place with the game. But really now, I'm going to assume that there are more than eight bows in the Dark Dawn world, or else hunting would become a very difficult business and meat would be the rarest commodity around.

Still, thanks for the criticism. I hadn't noticed it myself and it was a good wake up call to stay relevant to the game...

**Authors Note:**

**Edit: **Well I have to admit. I was expecting a LOT more reviews within the time this chapter has been on the site... I know at least 25 people must've read it and only 3 reviews, truly, it saddens me to see people being so very very unwilling to grant a writer they like (I am refering to people following any future stories from my account) some much needed pats on the back. Then again, it took even me some time to realize the effect of positive stimulation on others so that would explain why others, have not. So consider this your official wake up call: Yes. We do enjoy reading reviews and especially responding to them. Being in touch with the community is a big thing. Sending a review takes no more than five minutes and is everything a writer needs to make his die. I truly hope that, not just for myself but for all writers out there, you will heed those words.

So... This is by _far_ my longest chapter yet, and _definitely_ my most enjoyable one. Just like my first two chapters, everything that happened flowed straight out of me and I feel like I did an amazing job portraying the characters, compared to my previous chapters.

Truly, I am proud of myself.

Alas, school has started once more. And in a few weeks I will be in my last dash towards exams. This means I will have less and less time to write until around April! I've already noticed the effects myself. I planned finishing this on the third of January but I was outdone by time. Badly. In the holidays I would've continued until around two AM, and finished it but right now I'm stuck at just before twelve every day lest I want to be useless during school hours.

So yeah, enjoy guys!

**Chapter four: Fate Denied.**

"Do we have everything?" a voice said at the eastern entrance to Harapa.

A boy with yellow hair, no older than seventeen turned around to his friends.

They were all ready for combat or a long trip. Or maybe both.

The yellow haired boy had a large sword strapped to his back and wore a dark blue half sleeve vest with matching pants. Sturdy heavy leather boots made for traveling sat around his feet and he had a very distinct yellow scarf around his neck, hanging over his back.

"_He must be their guide."_ a passing man thought.

The blue haired boy stepped closer and spoke up. "Yeah, Tyrell and I've got everything at any rate. We've got the food, tools and some other things, like you assorted..." The yellow haired boy responded back with a smile. "Good." He then turned towards the green haired girl.

She hadn't been in a talkative mood all day and they all knew it... After last night she just hadn't been feeling her best but she had no idea why. _"Must've been the food."_ she kept telling herself as she nodded towards the boy in front of her when he turned to her. "Y-yeah. I've got everything." she added when she saw him frown. A moment of awkward silence passed by them, until he decided to shrug and keep moving instead of bothering with it.

"_That was close..."_ she thought. That was _the_ moment for him to bring up her silent demeanor of this morning. Something must have stopped him. _"Why didn't he..."_ She couldn't help but ponder.

She didn't get a chance to further ponder it though. "Right, let's go then." She shook up out of her thoughts as Matthew continued. "The sooner we do this the better, the towns people told me the next part will take us north-east towards Passaj, which is uphill the entire way for a good week's travel."

"And then we have to climb a damn mountain as well..." Tyrell noted grudgingly. Matthew lowered his head with a sigh before he responded. "Just deal with it. We all have to walk it."

"Yeah yeah. I know." the Mars adept responded, staring away at the path ahead.

"Let's go then." Matthew said with a determinated look as he turned around and went on first of the group. Tyrell followed close second, catching up to his friend and walking by his side. Within seconds the two best friends were joking around, poking fun at things and having a good laugh.

Rief followed third, followed by Karis whom went after them last. And thus the group of four adepts got on their way towards Passaj.

After two days, the group reach a fifty meter high rock wall, a dead end on the route.

"Strange. This isn't mentioned on the map." Matthew mumbled as he gazed over the map that Tyrell had picked up in the town.

"Let me take a look." Karis said as she dropped her bag behind her and walked over to Matthew. She took place right next to him, her shoulder leaning against his as she grabbed the map on one side and gently pulled it closer so she could look as well. "Maybe I can figure it out."

Matthew glowed up, she was so close! _"Calm down, it's just Karis."_ he said to himself mentally. Still, his cheeks went tomato red as she turned, her left breast now lightly brushing his arm._"Is she that ignorant?"_ He asked himself. But even before he could regain his composure, she spoke again. "I think we took this road by accident, we should've taken that smaller path a while back."

"The last time the road split was more than two hours ago." Tyrell said as he came closer, he gazed over the two from the side and wondered if Karis was simply not thinking about it due to being too focused on the traveling or that she was deliberately standing this close to Matthew. "I'm not sure if it's a good idea to spend four hours getting back this far."

Tyrell was now standing in front of the two, and tilted the map so that it was horizontally, Karis turned away from Matthew and the three stood in a triangle form around it to look at it.

Matthew glared at his friend, but he did not know whether he did that on purpose or if he shouldn't thank him for saving him from that awkward situation or not. Did he actually mind..? He shook the thoughts from his head and rejoined the conversation.

Rief was staring at the rocky cliff, which stood at a an angle towards them going upwards which caused the place to give one a very intimidated feeling. The Mercury adept sat down on one of the rocks nearby as he stared at the debating group. He could feel the tension from here, there was something going on between them outside of planning the route but he just couldn't put his finger on it.

"Well if we try to go through the forest we might be faster." Tyrell said, quickly glared at by Karis.

"Oh yes, why not get lost like you two did last time. Remember how I had to lead you both out of the forest?"

"I'm telling you we were fine! I was already pulling Tyrell out of there when-" Matthew responded, but Karis quickly interjected.

"You were going the _other_ way! How is that the right way?" At this, Matthew could only sigh and Tyrell couldn't help but smirk broadly. "Oh yes, like you're one to enjoy this Tyrell. You were the one that caused it to begin with." Karis snapped at him, quickly Tyrell looked away from the other two, rolling his eyes as he tried to figure out how to respond but to no avail.

"So... Why don't we go over it?" It suddenly sounded from behind them. In sync, the three childhood friends raised their heads, looked around and frowned at Rief questioningly. For a moment Rief couldn't help but think it was something they had practiced, so precise was the timing.

"Ahem. So yeah. Why don't we go over it? We could just _climb_ it?" he continued.

The three childhood friends fell silent, Tyrell's mouth fell open as if he didn't believe what he just heard. Matthew simply stared at Rief, searching his expression for obvious signs of joking whilest Karis crossed her arms across her stomach, looking up at the rocky cliff and apparently pondering the possibility.

Eventually Matthew made the first response to this idea. "We don't really have any climbing gear Rief."

Rief quickly responded back, taking the others by surprise at his suggestion. "So? You're a Venus adept right? Can't you use psynergy to move us on a rock up there?"

Matthew stared at him in disbelief. That would be madness he thought, it was a sheer cliff fifty meters up, maybe sixty!

"I don't think I- Well I could but... It'd be close and really... Tough." He tried to object, but he already said he believed he could do it, there was no helping the storm to come now.

Tyrell was the first to comment on it as well, and responded ever so supportive to his childhood friend. "Well if you think you can pull it off Matthew I'm with you the entire way." Matthew looked at Tyrell and they both grinned simultaneously. Rief couldn't help but think just how creepy it was how close those three were.

"Well... I don't know." Karis objected. "The last thing I want right now is to almost be up there and then suddenly fall forty meters if he can't manage anymore."

"Jeez Karis, have some trust in Matthew. He's stronger than he lets on you know." Tyrell commented. Matthew immediately glared daggers at his friend. It was true, he knew he was stronger than all of them. He couldn't do as much with psynergy as Karis or Rief but there was no doubt he could best any of them one on one. He didn't want to discourage his friends though, or have them rely too much on himself so he tried to keep it more or a less of a secret. Tyrell had found out when the two of them sparred and forced Matthew into a rough situation some time ago.

Still, the Mars adept might be a lumbering oaf from time to time, he's still pretty smart when he gets his moments.

He noticed his friend's glare and mended the situation, simply by acting as if he by no means had meant it. "Well, you know, you don't really watch him when we're in a fight you... Watch the monsters."

Matthew stopped glaring at Tyrell and faced to watch both Rief and Karis. To his surprise, they both shrugged it off as a bad comment.

An eerie silence fell over the group as nobody knew what to say.

"In any case." Matthew finally said. "I think... I think I'll manage to do it, but I'll be pushing my psynergy so I'll need a breather once we're up. You guys okay with that?" He looked over the rest of the group. Tyrell immediately grinned at his friend. Followed by Karis whom nodded and softly said: "Well if you think so." For a moment, Rief felt like objecting but then he remembered it was his own idea to begin with and decided that to object to his own idea would make him look like a fool.

"Alright guys, gather up, we'll go up in one go. Make sure you've got everything from down here, we're not going back down anytime soon." Tyrell went over to the bags, and grabbed both his and Matthews, smiling at his friend as he walked back to him. Both Karis and Rief picked up their own bags as well and took a spot next to Matthew.

"Everyone ready?" Matthew asked as he took a sturdy stance, bracing his feet into the grass. "We're ready. Let's go.. _Matthew_." Karis responded. The Venus adept couldn't help but notice the accent she placed on his name, she probably misspoke the words he figured. But this wasn't the time to be thinking why's or how's. Right now he had to focus, and make sure that they'd make it up.

The young Venus adept began channeling his psynergy, it flowed out of him and into the entire area around them. Then, as he felt he was ready, Matthew slammed his right palm into the ground, the very earth around the four adepts, save for what they were standing on, deforming to press more mass under their 'dirt platform' and thus lift them up.

Five meters. Ten meters. Twenty meters. Matthew sped up, feeling his psynergy wane away from him as he had to maintain more and more dirt in its place. The small platform they were standing on crumbled away at the edges, forcing the three adepts to stand ever closer to one another and the casting Venus adept.

Thirty meters. Forty meters! _"Almost there!" _Matthew thought as he doubled his efforts, the dirt platform now half the size it originally was.

Forty-five meters... Forty... Eight meters... Forty-Nine! Sweat was raining down from his face as he sheer stress on his body became clearly visible. At this point Tyrell realized Matthew wouldn't be able to actually put them on the ledge. He quickly turned, acting on instinct and grabbed the first person he got a grip on other than Matthew, and threw that person to the ledge. It turned out to be Rief, who was almost dazed by the throw, but managed to land on the ledge. Tyrell then quickly turned to Karis, staring at her as she glared daggers back at him. But before she could even tell him not to, he had grabbed her sturdily by the sides, causing he to flinch noticeably.

He couldn't hang on. He was almost out of psynergy and it had become impossible to rise any further, as he glanced to his side he noticed Rief had made it onto it, and then saw Karis taking a nose first leap for the cliff side, screaming all the way, landing halfly on it with her legs dangling over the side. Then went Tyrell, with a mighty leap he landed legs first on the ledge, making it all the way up. Now for himself.

Tyrell turned around as he landed, he quickly nodded at Matthew for him to jump. So he did. Matthew stopped casting, the platform quickly crumbled away. He jumped, putting all of his strength into it. The two friends reached out for each other. Time seemed to slow down as this happened, every movement passed as if it took a minute, every movement could be planned and re-planned to make sure they'd reach each other...

She'd managed to crawl up on to the ledge, and still just crawling, she turned her head around. Some of her green hair had fallen in front but she could see it plain as day. Matthew pushing off... Matthew leaping... Matthew swinging his arms trying to get more momentum... And then, Matthew disappearing beneath below the cliff's edge for as far as she could see. She was stunned, she only managed to do one thing. "MATTHEEEEW!" She screamed at the top of her lungs. Rief, who had taken to sitting back comfortably could only gasp in terror as he saw the same thing.

There was no time to think. Tyrell noticed Matthew wasn't going to make it so he quickly dropped himself onto the cliff edge, landing nastily on his clavicle. He stretched out his arm as far as he could, reaching for his friend. He could hear Karis scream louder than he ever had before and could only close his eyes... And then, he felt something touching his wrist. Immediately the two grabbed for each other and Tyrell knew he had a fighting chance.

"_Karis!"_ was all that Matthew though, her scream had set itself into his head, he instinctively grabbed on as tight as possible to Tyrell's hand and wrist but the only thing that managed to course through his mind at that time was her – and what would happen to her if he let go. Images of her filled whatever parts of his brain should have been thinking of survival, her screaming, her crying... Matthew's mind screamed at him, he had to focus! There was no way he'd let her down like that. Not now, not ever. He knew he was in a bad way though, the platform was gone and it was a sheer fifty meter drop down if he let go. But he wasn't going to, if he had to he would put his nails against the stone wall and hold on that way. He wasn't going to let her down.

She couldn't move... Not a finger. Tears rolled down her cheeks against all he desires to not cry. She wanted to dash over to Tyrell, she wanted to help him pull Matthew up, but she couldn't. Every fiber in her body denied her any control. All she could do was sit there, her eyes crying though she didn't know why. Thoughts raced through her mind faster than they ever had before. _"He can't die, he can't die, he won't die. He wouldn't do that. HE WOULDN'T DO THAT!"_ she screamed subconsciously as she couldn't do anything but look on, terror gripping her body.

"_Not good!" _Rief thought, logical thought had reclaimed his mind and he thought through the best thing to do next, in a split second he glanced at Karis and realized she was nailed to the ground. It was up to him, in that same split second he jolted up and went to Tyrell's side, grabbing his shoulders and pulling as hard as he could. _"Anything! I have to do whatever I can! Matthew's depending on us!"_ he thought.

He could feel someone gripping his shoulder and pulling. This was what he needed! Now he had the opportunity to swing his other hand down as well without risking sliding off. The Mars adept quickly grabbed Matthew's hand with a loud grunt. Slowly he began pulling upwards, using Rief's help to pull upwards. _"I'm not letting you go you dammit..."_ Tyrell thought. He began pulling Matthew in with all of his strength.

"_Matthew-"_ Her mind interrupted her, logic was finally kicking into action once more. Rief and Tyrell were both hanging on as much as they could, pulling him up. And she was just sitting there, crying. _"What's wrong with me!"_ she wanted to yell, but she couldn't even whimper it. Slowly she crawled up, her legs shaking. After a short moment she moved over to Tyrell and Rief, and grabbed Tyrell as well, pulling as hard as her muscles would let her.

"Alright, PULL!" Tyrell yelled. In one movement, they pulled Matthew up to the point that he grabbed the ledge and they grabbed his clothes, pulling him up over the edge within just twenty seconds from Tyrell yelling. The Mars adept fell over next to his friend, gasping for air. In total he must have been holding Matthew up for at least seven minutes. If it were Rief or Karis...

Tyrell looked towards his side, still gasping for air, only to realize Matthew had already sat up. He should be out of it but still he's moving. Truly an amazing guy. Then he realized what for.

She stood there, right in front of him, arms wrapped in front of her stomach. Tears rolling down her cheeks and falling on the ground as her entire body shook from the various emotions that she was experiencing. She stood there, fists clenched tight, staring at Matthew, as if not believing he was still alive. She stood there... And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She bursted into crying as she slumped down to the ground onto her knees, her feet resting next to her sides as she cried, more than either of her childhood friends had ever seen her cry.

The young, blue haired boy sat there next to the group, his left knee close to his chest with his other leg relaxing on the ground as he looked at the odd scene. He had never seen Karis like this. They've been together for... Three weeks now? Maybe a few days less. But in that time he had gotten to know the others as if they had been together since forever.

It was as if he was staring at an emotional wreck. This wasn't Karis...

The Mercury adept could not help but feel out of place. Where were his feelings about this? They just saved Matthew's life on the brink of it being lost, and he didn't feel anything. He was glad, but not ecstaticly happy. Not even slightly happy actually.

"_Am I **really** a part of this... group? Am I just... tagging along..?"_ he pondered. He'd never had much friends. In his early youth Rief was often bullied and then saved by his sister whom had mastered psynergy much earlier than he had. Never had he felt like he was really a part of a group until he met Matthew, Tyrell and Karis. But now...

Rief was still thinking deeply, when Matthew decided he couldn't bear watching her like this.

Shakingly the Venus adept tried to get up onto his feet. He failed though, and sunk down onto a knee. But he immediately tried again, and got up to his feet and slumped over to Karis. As he came close, he collapsed onto his knees in front of her, and hugged her tight, holding her sobbing body against his own.

For a second it seemed as if his breathing and her sobbing melted together into one rhythm as Karis fell even more speechless along with the rest. A feeling of peace and tranquility fell over him as he continued to hold her. He couldn't help but think about how nice this felt. But the adrenaline of everything that happened just now prevented his mind from actually processing those thoughts.

He looked on as he had sat up when Matthew stood up. It was nice that this was happening for the two of them... Tyrell thought. Yet he couldn't help but feel agitated. He had just saved his friends life and he goes straight to hug her. Did he even matter? Then it struck him that it might not be due to that, that he was agitated. He had begun seeing Karis in a different light and this had now struck him like lightning by clear sky. He knew better than to try to flirt with her. Ever since... They stopped, he hadn't tried to look at her in any other way than a friend. Yet here his best friend was hugging the girl he still seemed to care for.

"_Bastard."_ For a second, Tyrell considered breaking them up... But he knew he would be the bad guy, he knew the others would frown upon him for that, so he didn't. Instead he glared at the two, envy filling his body slowly against his wish.

"_What is- Why is he-... He's-"_ Her mind was just barely reactivating... She couldn't stop the crying. Nor could she stop herself from laying her own arms around his body as he hugged her. But despite her autonomous movements, her mind was overclocking itself with thoughts. _"He's... Hugging... Me..."_ If she had the slightest control of herself, she would've ripped herself apart from him, too embarrassed to look at him for the rest of the week But her body wouldn't obey. Just like before, it wouldn't move.

Still... She liked it... He smelled dirty, but somehow, being embraced by him like this felt nice, comfortable. And somehow natural. _"This is wrong, it's Matthew, I shouldn't think like that."_ She kept saying to herself, but the thoughts came back every time she ended that sentence. There was no stopping them.

So she sat there, her sobbing slowly subsiding, their rhythm breaking...

What was he doing. He was hugging _Karis_. His lifelong friend, the girl his first memory in his life is about, where she hit him after he took one of her toys and his mother came running when he cried when they were just little. This was _Karis_! This was wrong! But it felt so right to hug her, he had no idea why but it did, and he didn't want to let go. Not yet. But he wasn't breathing as heavily anymore, nor was she still crying. She was just faintly sobbing every few seconds. It wouldn't be right, no matter the situation, to keep holding her when it was like that, so he had to let go. He had to back off.

So he did. Slowly he released his grip around her, moving backwards and forcing her to let go as well. As he did, he noticed his scarf was gone... His father's heritage was gone, it must have fallen off somewhere along the way.

Slowly the Venus adept stood up, still shaking, but he managed. Karis remained on the ground, her arms had dropped down from his back as she was sitting there. She wasn't looking up, or anywhere at all for that matter.

His friend was standing up, finally, Tyrell thought. About time he stopped hugging her so intensely. When Matthew gazed around him, getting his bearings, the Mars adept flashed his usual grin at him. It had become obvious that they wouldn't be going anywhere. Matthew was a useless chunk of meat right now, he wouldn't be able to run fifty meters and Tyrell knew it. Still, his own shoulder had taken quite the beating back there, falling badly on his clavicle and then all the downward force as well. He didn't need a doctor to know that his arm needed rest badly. And then there was Karis. He'd never seen her like that... Frankly he wanted to have been the one to have comforted her but it was too late now. Regardless, she was a wreck. She wouldn't be able to start walking right now and keep herself on her feet without support. The only one who was in a decent shape was Rief but that simply wasn't enough. They'd need at least three of them in proper condition to have any chance at hitting the road. It wasn't a hard conclusion, they were stuck here. Luckily it was already late in the afternoon so they wouldn't lose too much time.

Apparently, Matthew had noticed this as well and with a sigh and a nod to his best friend, he spoke up with a rasping voice. "I think it's best if we camp out here for the night guys... Let's... Let's set up the tents..." He had cut himself off back there, he had wanted to assign tasks to everybody, like how he usually leaves one of the tents to Karis to set up... But the last thing he wanted to do right now, was to force her to do anything at all. Not when she was like this.

He was the first to get up, his bag had an entire tent stashed in it so he could set one up right away, so such he started. The Mercury adept cleaned out his bag, and began working on setting the tent up, conveniently in front of Karis. The two other adepts got busy as well. With a nod they made obvious to one another what they would do. Tyrell would create the camp fire, whilest Matthew would take care of the least strenuous task, organizing provisions and getting the cooking equipment ready.

She slowly got up, first one foot on that ground, then pushing up with another, a slow process if nothing else but at least she was moving again. No use just sitting there. Karis slumped over to Rief, offering her help which he silently accepted.. The tension was clear, any words said would be in vain so none were said.

Day passed into evening, and evening passed into night.

Rief had made clear that he would take first watch for the group when he determinedly sat down next to the fire. Nobody questioned him, they'd use their regular schedule with him first.

And thus the night on top of the cliff began.

**Author's Note:**

**Well well. I do hope I surprised you all with how I changed my writing style. I figured I'd add a lot more perspective and personality if I wrote every part from the eyes of someone close by. Be it a random person or one of the adepts. Personally, I loved writing like that.**

**Without a shred of doubt, my longest chapter so far... 5034 words. Almost twice as long as my last one! That plus school is kind of my excuse for why it took so long! .**

**I also think I did a pretty good job on the drama in this chapter. As one can see I'm building up a lot of things in a row. The shadows in the cave, the nightmare, Karis' silence that morning, the close call jump. It's all going to come back sooner or later in one way or another. I never drop plot twists. But for all I'll tell you, it might take another ten chapters before they do and it'll be about snow cones instead! Muahahaha...**

**Since I wrote this in a wholly new way, I'm kind of afraid it's a bad read despite how much I liked it... So, if you've got any complaints, now is the time to tell me.**

**If you find grammar issues, would you mind telling me? Seriously, I only noticed whom wasn't who'm because someone said so. Improvement is all about knowledge about oneself and this cannot always be supplied by yourself.**

**And as a final note, I'm planning on letting this run into the tens of chapters. It'll end when I reach the official end of Dark Dawn + an epilogue, but due to my spontaneous writing, I have no idea WHEN or HOW it will end either.**


	5. Chapter 5: Campfire Stories

Authors note:

My thanks to Kazorashi for his review, I respond to every one of them but I can't with anonymous ones, so this will have to suffice.

Chapter Five: Campfire stories.

The fire crackled, sparks flew up and filled the nights sky before extinguishing themselves in the cold night, only to be replaced by more sparks flying up. An endless cycle – or at least until the fire ran out of wood to burn.

The blue haired boy was sitting on the toolbox, which is – ironically – filled with tools. Tyrell always carries it in his bag and they use the tools inside for a variety of purposes, usually an improvised one too. Since some time it had been the unspoken rule that it'd serve as the chair for whomever was on watch duty, so Tyrell always put it outside near the campfire once all they'd go to sleep.

He was sitting there, poking the fire every now and then with a stick to push away the charcoal and open up the wood beneath keep it burning, occasionally glancing around for anything suspicious though it was more of a formality to do so than that it had any practical use, a monster could sneak up on the camp from three different sides so he had to rely on sounds in order to be alerted.  
Luckily most monsters, be they goblins or skeletons, seemed to keep their distance from the campfire. All the more reason to keep it lit.

He hadn't been able to sleep. Tyrell kept turning and twisting, trying to find the sweet spot that would grant him rest. Next to him lay Matthew on his back, arms all over the place, barely moving in contrast to himself. In sleeping, Tyrell and Matthew were odd opposites despite their life long friendship. Where Tyrell sometimes has trouble falling asleep and always wakes up early, Matthew is a ravening sleeping beast. The moment Matthew would hit the bed was when he was asleep and he would always sleep till noon if it was up to him.

The young Mars adept turned again in the tent. Even he should have been able to fall asleep quickly bat after everything that had happened, but it was as if his mind was forcefully preventing it. Every time he tried to think over what had happened he saw Karis in front of him clear as day – crying. Every time he tried to think of what could have happened, of how Matthew could have died if they had missed each other, he heard her scream in his ear drums, deafening all other sounds from existence. And whenever he tried to put it out of his head, Matthew hugging her would appear in front of him, the back of his friend's head and her face clearly visible. Her eyes were filled with shock at first, mouth wide open, before she seemed to let out all her emotions. She'd hug him back, putting her chin on his shoulder, tears rolling down her face, her hair which was usually so well done now a mess...

Her hair was always so beautiful but right then...

His face slowly flared up. Her hair was beautiful, she was beautiful. He had thought so for a long time. With a smile he repeated the words in his mind, no long twisting and turning in his bed. "She's always been beautiful." And he didn't mean only her hair. Everything about her just kept striking him as perfect. He'd fallen for her all over, again. He had been adamant about not letting it happen once more but his attempts had been foiled by pretty much everything about her. How could he not fall in love? He knew it would cause trouble with the others, Matthew in particular, but he was sure that he could tell her about what he felt for her sooner or later. He figured he'd even manage before crossing that mountain.

He'd tell her he likes her again, she'll tell him the same thing back, that she takes back what she said before. His mind drifted off into various details, but he knew one thing for certain: He'd have to confess to her, because he now knew for certain what he felt.

"_Maybe I should... go -now- and... talk to her..."_ His mind suggested. He knew it was in the middle of the night and she'd have the last shift too. He'd be waking her up once more than necessary, for all he knew she could get extremely mad at him over it.

"_Only for a bit."_ The amorous side of his brain battled for control against his conscious, trying to persuade him into doing it. He tried to push them away, listen to his consciousness as it screamed against the very foundations of the idea. I'd be stupid, he'd be interrupting her sleep, she'd scold him for it. But after he'd gone so far as to confirm that he loved her once more, he knew he'd never fall asleep anymore unless he actually went and did something – anything.

Slowly the fire adept got up out of his sleeping-bag and put on a shirt, jacket, pants and boots, making sure not to disturb Matthew – though he doubted anything would wake him at this hour – and made his way to the tent's door flap. It was only as he was already lifting it and stepping out that he remembered that Rief was on watch. Rief would be sitting right -there-, next to the fire.  
It was too late to go back, Rief already turned towards him with a questioning look. He tried to think of a solution, of some way to get out. Rief would question him without doubt, what would he say?

So there he stood, and there _he_ sat. Both looking at each other, silent as the night surrounding them.

Rief was the first to say something, like he always is. I was sooner than he'd have liked him to. "Okay, I know you're an early bird but this is ridiculous." Rief joked. Tyrell couldn't help but sigh in relief, at the very least he hadn't asked him straight about what was going on.

"Ye-Yeah. I couldn't sleep just now." he responded a few seconds later. Better to use the joke to his advantage and buy some time to figure out what he'd do. He had a few options: He could say he's going to take a walk, he could just turn around like an ass (Though that would inevitably result in questions being asked much later), or he could sit down next to Rief and talk to him. Suddenly he realized, if anyone, Rief would be the one to talk to in this horrible situation. He's the only one in the dark and the only one whom would be likely to support him. Either through talking or actually helping him.

Before he could finish his thoughts though, Rief continued on with a question.  
"Bad dreams?"

"Sort of. I was thinking about something." the Mars adept quickly responded. He had just cornered himself, now Rief would be expecting him to explain it and if he refused it would come over oddly, causing all sorts of problems over time. And just like Tyrell thought he would, Rief responded as such.

"What were you thinking about?" he asked. Now it was his move again, what would he say? That he was thinking about last nights dinner? That would make he look like an even bigger glutton. In fact, he couldn't think of any other alternatives whatsoever, he was a glutton after all, he trained a lot so he had to eat a lot too.  
All he could do was stumble with umm's and uhhhh's as he bought himself the time he needed.

After a few moments, he could see the impatience growing on Riefs face – he was running out of time and options... So he finally dropped the flap behind him as he moved over to Rief and sat down next to him on the grass next to the ever so warm camp fire. He couldn't think of anything else to do, it was too sudden to think of excuses. He was acting way too obvious to ever hope to hide it too. "That bad?" Rief asked, eyes locked on the fire which he kept poking with a stick, apparently amusing himself with it.

"You know..." He started. Rief turned his head from the fire, eying Tyrell whom was being surprisingly timid about simply talking. "There's more behind me and Karis and Matthew than... Than you know about... And it's, well, confusing me. I don't know what to do and I can't ask anyone else about this. It's not like I planned talking about it to _you_... I didn't even figure you'd be out here but I am now anyway." He said, carefully picking his every word from the massive amount of options. He had to pull this off carefully. Tell him too much at once and he'll be confused, possibly asking Karis or Matthew further about it. Tell him too little and it would be a waste of time AND he would ask Karis and Matthew sooner or later without fail to get the rest of the details.

"Wait, you mean you can't talk to Matthew about this but you can to _me_?" Rief responded perceptively. "Oh now this is a great one... I thought you still didn't trust me all that much." Indeed this was true, after all, Matthew was related to all of this – it would be just outright awkward to bring it up. He decided against telling him that the latter had nothing to do with it though and that it wasn't a sudden increase in friendship.

"Yeah... I know. It's just- Alright, look. It's not that easy, it's not like 'I hate forests because...' or 'Cold food is the worst, because', it's much more complicated. Way too complicated. And I don't know what exactly to do about it" Tyrell said, avoiding the his gaze whilst he rambled on. He knew he was just beating around the bush and he knew that he would be asked about the real problem the moment he stopped. Still, he used this opportunity to set his mind straight.

"Then start at the beginning, where it started. That would work right?" The youngest person in the group had again proven his worth, by all means he was right like he usually was. Tyrell was well aware of this.  
"Well, alright... The beginning. Let's see..."

It was a very nice day in May, the sun was bright and crisp with but a bare few clouds in the sky. The wind blew mostly warm air in, traded for the occasional colder northern breeze. More clouds were further to the east, but the area had been almost void of any wind and the clouds had been moving at an almost irritatingly slow rate. It was clear that this weather would continue like this for a few days yet.

He had been lying in the grass all day, what better a way to relax for a Mars adept than to lie in the sun and bath in it's warmth.  
He was the oldest of the three with fourteen years on the clock. He'd only just turned fourteen though so it didn't feel like it at all.

For four months it had been going on now. It had taken a January snow-in with both their parents and Matthew stuck outside on a trip to town for it to happen.  
It started with the irony that they'd run out of firewood for the fireplace inside the house and the reserves were well outside the building. Not just that, it'd be wet too due to all the snow covering it.  
He had had some training back then as well, but his actual control over the flames he created still lacked a great deal in expertise. Unwilling to burn the cabin down to the ground along with them in a fiery blaze, he'd decided against the idea of using his elemental power. All the two of them could do was wait until either the sun rose again and the snow blocking their path mostly smelted away or until their parents and Matthew would save them.

He didn't really remember what happened back then after that point... Just that they ended up sharing blankets for extra warmth on her request. He didn't know exactly why at that point yet. Until they shared a kiss under the shimmering light of a weak lantern at any rate. All other details were but fuzzy to him.  
That right there had been their declaration of love so long ago, at the time it felt blissful. Enough so that the words didn't even seem needed to be said.  
At that point his memory ran out however and Karis had kept insisting nothing more happened than one more, longer, kiss and some snuggling and had demanded he kept it a secret from Matthew and their parents.

In the past four months, they'd been sharing that affection on intervals, talking and kissing out of sight, even from the Djinni's in fear that they might tell on them.

It felt weird and misplaced, to keep this a secret from his best friend and their parents, and even from the townsfolk down the mountainside. But he had done so for the past few months, entirely oblivious to the loyalties that this has made him pick, so there was no going back anymore.

He was lying in the grass, eyes closed as the grass' leaves grazed past his face. True relaxation as the few clouds that covered the skies danced by, shifting shapes and casually moving across the heaven's sky. Yet all around him it was a ruckus.

They both turned their heads at the same time towards the rustling. It was Matthew, standing fully clothed in the opening of the tent. With an otherwise amusing sheepish look he eyed them both up and down, curious why both he and Tyrell were up and sitting there.

This was bad, if Matthew heard that conversation then he wouldn't forgive him for it for a long time. But for some reason he just stood there, as if expecting them to tell him all about what they were just talking about. Like he didn't even want to have to ask. The Mars Adept turned his head to Rief whom in return rolled his eyes and made the saving first move.  
"Hey Matthew." he said hesitantly whilst slowly turning to face Matthew again. "Is it... time for a shift change already?" "Yeah. Or we could just pack and move right now? Seeing as you're both up and at it." Matthew joked in response, not showing the slightest hint that he's angry or even uncomfortable. "But really, why -are- you both up? I can understand if you exchanged shifts, sure, but one of you should be resting for tomorrow."  
"Y-yeah. Sorry, that'd me. I couldn't sleep." Tyrell spoke as he stood up and dusted off the back of his pants. He turned to face Matthew, attempting to seem as normal as possible.

He frowned, Tyrell was acting weird, but then again it was in the middle of the night and he wasn't able to sleep so for all he knew he was imagining things. In a vain attempt, he tried rubbed the drowsiness out of his eyes with his hands but he only managed to cause his eyes to water. He shrugged it off though since it was much too dark even with the fire to see any detail as small as that on somebody's face.  
He nodded at Tyrell before continuing."Right. Well, you both should get some rest, I'll take over watch now." "Thanks. Try to stay awake Matthew." Rief said, getting up as well and without further ado went straight for his tent, not even minding any possible response.

"I'll go back to bed as well then." He said, passing Matthew towards the tent a moment later.  
"Hey, what were you talking about, if you don't mind me asking?"  
He froze. He was -so- close to getting away, seemingly without him knowing and -now- he was asking? "I- Nothing, just some talk about the road ahead." He responded, attempting to seem sincere. He had figured that if he was still acting like that whilst Rief was already back in his tent he must really not have heard the conversation, or at least not enough to connect the dots.

The Mars Adept walked back into their tent to go to sleep, which he had left with such a strong conviction, only to be turned away by not gaining anything and only complicating the situation further with the involvement of Rief.

Ending notes: Apparrently, people still read this despite the fact that I'm not getting reviews (I got favorited) so here's a little update!

I am very freaking busy. Know how all those people whoms work you love so very much are ALWAYS way too busy to actually do it? Well there. It's not a lie, or a farce, which is the same thing.  
I originally figured to myself "No way in hell is chapter six coming out in April...". Well, I was right. I tend to be since I don't randomly yell things. Either way, I'm worrying for May now as well... I will have only the final week of May free from school.- Actually, scrap that. I won't. Exams will last two weeks. Yeah. Six is not coming out in May, sorry!

As a little teaser, it has fighting. Not the kind of "I am strong!" "Lul no, THIS is strong" "Fuck! I need to have friendship!" "Zomg why are you stronger" fight which I hate in all it's glorious disaster. No, this will have some real moves however, the limitations of writing whilst remaining interesting are there so I can't depict ever clash of a sword or the smallest details of each psynergy use for you guys.  
But don't worry, I'll make it work.

Burning question, when will I get it done? Well, I have the basic line outs of the chapter and whats coming in the next 4 or so. I would say +- 15th of June, but don't hold me to it o.o'

I wanted to make this a larger update but screw it, I'm tired and I'd probably write something half arsed.

Rawr!


	6. Mini chapter 1: A Small Request

_Author's notes: Welcome to Mini chapter #1, A Small Request. I was feeling seriously bad earlier today about not being able to write out the stories due to school, I really do feel like you guys deserve better than two months of waiting times._

_So I decided upon writing a small mini chapter in Ayuthay, I wrote it in less than an hour total, minus grammer checks and in one go, all during my spare time from studying for my final exams._

_I assume some of you will ask: "But Blackraider78/Birbrain, why didn't you use that time to write the next -real- chapter in the story?" (Or maybe you wouldn't but you sure as hell are now.) This would be because within the same amount of time in the actual story I would have gotten maybe... 100 extra words in that I'd end up keeping? This is a 1000 word mini chapter and the reason I could write so much more is because I don't have to care about continuity to any extent nor does this alter the relationships between anyone even a bit. So instead of altering everything untill I absolutely loved it myself, I could just write away to my hearts content._

_I hope you like this chapter. And remember, I am still alive and kicking and I will return like a cheesy overused super villian who's been owned by a super hero at least twenty times before – WITH A BANG!... I hope._

Mini chapter 1: A Small Request.

"But I really want it! I know I don't have enough but can you really not lower the price?"

It was a sight to behold deep within the chambers of the water city of Ayuthay. Many a regular costumer of the various stands arounds the Ayuthayian market grounds was watching, or at least held up in their shoppings for the briefest moment. A stranger was amongst them all, and even trying to barter with a trader, a strange thing as the economy within Ayuthay had been rock solid and nobody needed to barter to get what they needed and nobody had a shortage of anything.

He had been trying to purchase a small silver chained necklace with a small ruby in the center of golden center piece, adorned by various ribbles and markings around the ruby. However, it's price far outweighed his purse's fullness and he had been trying to bargain the price down for the past ten minutes with everything he had, to no avail.

"Boy, if I lower that price, it won't even be half of what it was originally. I can not do that! I need to make a profit off of the things I sell. The awnser is no." The shopkeeper bruskly refused his pleas. Bartering was not something he had been particularly good at. He wasn't explicitly bad either but he definetly wasn't good, and that was showing itself now.

"Come on! Isn't there anything I can do? I really do want it, it's exactly what I want!" He tried, all his efforts seeming in vain, but just as hope abandoned him on getting the necklace, the shopkeeper sighed and leaned on his stall, eyeing the young warrior up and down.

"You're not to dirty towards working, boy? If you want it that badly, I've got some work for you to get the coin you need." He offered him. More wary now, the young man stood back on his right foot, straightening his back and crossing his arms whilst looking at the shopkeeper with frowned eyes. "What kind of work are we talking about here?" he asked. "I've got a storage room close by but it's been infested with rats for weeks now and I've just about had it with cleaning or even throwing out anything that I put in there. If you can go in there and stop the problem, and I don't care how you do it nor do I want to know, I will give you the necklace for free. What about it, boy?"

He grinned as the man proposed the idea, already having accepted the deal in his mind. "It's a deal." The two shook hands, closing the deal between them. "Name's Craig, glad to have you helping, boy." "Mine's Matthew. Lead me to the place." The two stupidly grinned at each other before Craig led him to the storage room.

It smelled of rat piss, rat crap, rotting wood and a different odor that he couldn't quite make out. The walls were very old, pieces of rock had fallen off and it looked like a few hammer smashes would be aplenty to end this buildings life span once and for all. The corners, no matter where you looked, were absolutely filled with spider nests everywhere. Some small, some big. Some raggy, some perfectly formed. Tens of bugs were crawling all over the floor, looking for their next meal of the day. It was now that it hit him that it was the smell of decay he had been smelling, bodies of insects in all shapes and sizes decaying everywhere when they were not eaten by something. Luckely, the smell was mostly cancelled out by the smell of rotting wood which was a slightly more pleasant, if overwhelming, odor.

Many crates and random junk adorned the room in multiple rows, with one center lane to acces each one on each side of the room. A few empty weapon racks formed the front of he first row on the right whereas some stacked chairs made up the front a bit further in on the left.

"There's more in here than just rats..." he said. The shopkeeper had already left to return to his stall and had left him alone inside the dimly lit room to take care of the problem.

He carelessly strode through the room, not caring for the bugs, some dead but mostly alive, under his feet. He strolled around, looking for the origin of the rat problem in the room.

Eventually his search led him to a crate as high as his shoulders which was slightly away from the wallside. Taking a sneak peak behind the crate, minding not to turn his head into a coop a-la cobweb, he noticed a darker spot along the wall. A small, wide hole had been the cause for the rats getting into the storage room probably. He could feel the rats tripling along happily on the other side through various pipes and holes. Surprisingly, this would be an easy problem to solve as he could also feel that there were no creatures of that size and weight in the storage at that moment. With a stretched arm and his powers over Earth, he grew a small part of the wooden floor upwards to fill up the small hole and prevent the rats from entering anymore. Upon finishing it he knocked on the small wooden wall he had created to ascertain it's strength, and was happy to see it would hold against any kind of rattish nibbling for at least a few months. At this point, his adventurer's drive kicked in, warning him that everytime after any decent accomplishment, something would go wrong. He grabbed for his sword and turned around, only to stare into the darkness ahead. No big bad poisonous spider out to eat him, no twenty zombies out to eat specifically his brain and no overgrown jelly like monsters whom he still does not stand as to what they are out to steal his stuff. There was just the silence and relative darkness before him, a peacefull room – save for the tens of critters living out their fight for survival around him. He put his sword back into it's sheath before walking out of the room with large strides, happy to leave it behind for the rest of his days.

Right away he went back to the shopkeeper to report his succes. He did not ask Matthew how he had done it but he honorably held himself to his end of the bargain and handed over the necklace to him that he had so much wanted. Matthew thanked the man greatly before striding back to the inn to take a rest and give a certain person a gift to be envied of.

_Author's notes: I hope you liked it! I grew a bit tired of it once he had found the rat hole so it is shorter than I had originally planned but I still very much like the way it worked out._

_As always, please review to make me feel good about writing things (I am not joking here, it's like that for every writer)._

_P.s. Ooh yeah! I've also gotten more active on my Facebook account (I don't really know why) so I'm going to post a link to it in case anyone wants to post on my wall... WHY you would do that I do not know but I'm giving you the chance just because I like to open opportunities to people._

_I don't actually have anything fun, amusing or informative there but I might change that in the near future._

_.?id=100000498871079_


	7. Chapter 6: Clarification

**Author's Note:**

Get the reference and you're awesome. I'll say what it was in the after note.

So this took really long. Sorry. Actually, I've had the final version of the story ready for almost two weeks now. Why did it take so long? Because to me, fixing all the crappy mistakes I make is like reading Twilight. For the fourth time. I hate doing it so very very much, it's the least attractive bit about writing. But hey, I'll get over myself and get used to it. I'm sure.

Don't forget to read the end notes and I hope you enjoy this chapter filled with yeah right this ain't no spoiler buddy :D

Update1: Grammar mistakes fixed as far as I found them and I'm using the advice of several people for a new paragraph per person speaking. I swear, six chapters in and suddenly three people start informing me of that xD

Chapter Six: Clarification.

Many things happened since that campfire night on top of the cliffs, leading up to the group restoring the Alchemy Forge to partial power and the Alchemy Well to full power. Along with a certain Water Adept prince from Ayuthay joining them on their travels. Summed up, getting over a mountain is not something easy.

The were nearing the entrance into a small village in between Ayuthay and Passaj, with no more than twenty wooden houses and few stone ones spread far over the hillside in between farms and cattle fields. Animals were in abundance, the cows were busy grazing the fields empty whilst a rag of horses were taking it easy in the distance behind fences. The dirt road they were walking on was steep and not very wide. It was one of the side roads of the village away from the main road through which caravans and larger traveling groups passed.

Five young people, all oddly distinct from one another, were passing past the villagers and other travelers, drawing no small amount of attention.

A brightly red haired man was leading up front, walking broad and swinging his arms about in a display, glaring at bystanders with his chin raised a bit, trying to intimidate them. Directly behind him was another young man, roughly his age but less muscular and sharp eyes. In contrary to the boy in front of him, he simply walked on, his jacket's pliant collar waving across his neck in the hillsides usual strong winds.

Almost next to him, but a few steps back walked the only girl in the group. A pretty young woman whom every man in the village stared after. There was not a soul among the few younger men in the town that did not watch after her at least for a moment.

Next followed two out of place looking boys. Both had blue hair but one of them was a lot more fine looking than the other, whom with his glasses and heavy robes seemed like a scholar of sorts, a prodigy one could guess.

"Merchants ye think?" A brawny man asked his compatriot across the outdoor table.

The other one grinned in a reply. "De're lightly packin' but yeh never know dese days...". Both glared after the group as the made their way past the houses. The men slowly faded from sight as the road turned left, following the sway of the hill.

"You know, I don't like this town." the young prince confessed grumblingly. Karis slowed down to match his slower pace, turning her head to him with a worried look. "

What do you mean, Amiti? We've seen these kinds of villages tens of times by now."

"Well, it's just that I've never even heard of this place before. And those people looked at us with those odd grins as if they were eying us for something. Mostly you, anyway." the prince confessed, now blushing uncomfortably.

She turned her head back, muttering a quick and embarrassed "Let them think what they want." before increasing her pace again.

She was a slight bit taller than him by almost two centimeters, had smooth almost silky green hair hanging down across her back and a few strings over her shoulders. She had confessed preferring a close ponytail instead of just hanging it generally, but lately felt more like trying different hairstyles.

Her eyes shined lively, amazingly so. A single look at those purple eyes could heal any wounded soul and any mend irritation within the blink of an eye. She was just so pure in her demeanor, despite having done her share of monster killing.

She looked back at him over her shoulder, she'd drawn her conclusion but as she looked back at the young prince, Amiti, she saw him quickly looking away from her. Had he been eying her over..? She figured it was to be expected, being the only girl in the group, but it was even more embarrassing than what the villagers did, he was a friend. After all, she didn't see any of them as anything more than really good friends. The thought came over odd and shook her up when she realized that both Matthew and Tyrell had taken a liking to staring at her on occasions, whereas Rief seemed to avoid looking at her outside of conversations. He had explained that "Ones body is a private thing and should be honored.". None of them understood what he meant but they respected it nonetheless.

She turned her head back forward again, cracking a smile. Did she notice him watching her? _"You're a prince Amiti, and you're staring at a girl and thinking- Dammit!"_ he thought to himself, but the damage was done, he knew she had seen him watching. She didn't even have to have seen him watching directly to know it. How he turned his head to the other side was evidence enough. Luckily it didn't seem like she paid attention to when she finally responded.

"If you ask me... You're just not used to it yet. You'll see plenty of villages and towns on the road Amiti. We'll be back out on the road in no time at all so don't fret about it."

Rief stepped up to slightly behind Amiti and on his left as he spoke up.

"I don't think there's any reason at all for us to fear these villagers. Even if the burlier men attacked us, we're with five and we're all capable adepts. You're just being paranoid. I was like that too at first when I started traveling with Kraden. You really get used to it." he said, roguishly smiling at the prince.

She turned her head around as Rief helped her out in putting him at ease. The Jupiter adept threw Rief a smile, before speeding up her step to catch up to Matthew and promptly started talking to him. A few moments later Tyrell dropped in line as well and the three were quickly laughing away as Tyrell cracked his jokes, leaving behind one awkward prince and a silent scholar.

By the time Rief spoke up, the group had already passed out of the village and it's fields, entering a dense forest.

"They are really close friends... Aren't they?" Rief finally said. The other Mercury adept turned his head again to look at him as Rief caught up to his speed.

"Yeah, I suppose they are. They're always like this aren't they?" he responded.

"More or a less. You know what I know, childhood friends and such. I can't say I'm fitting in much more than you really. I don't know, it feels like I shouldn't try to." Rief confessed. Memories of that particular afternoon at the cliff flooded his head, the feelings came back to him, of silent solitude from the group despite his involvement.

"You're worried that they'll frown at you if you try to mix in, am I wrong?" Amiti asked.

"You've got it pretty much right. I don't know what to do really, I was hoping it would be easier for you to fit in than for me and maybe I could..."

"...ride in on it with me, is that it?" Amiti finished his sentence.

"It's kind of like that yeah. But it doesn't really matter, it's fun enough as it is." Rief replied. Amiti didn't believe it, he knew Rief was hiding something from him deliberately ever since he first talked with him about the group as a whole. But it was also clear that Rief was not going to tell him even if he pressured him.

"Oy, Sash. Dere's some five kiddies comin' up de road. Dey look like merchants tryin' de hide dat dere money by spreadin' it 'round dere bags." A muscular had walked up to a group of eight men, all lying in wait just around a small bend in a forest road.

"Is that so... Five of them? Easy pickings. We'll take them..." the man responded. The man wore a white shirt with leather paddings on his shoulders, elbows and sides, as well as a colored sash from which he had gained his nickname around his waist and dark green pants underneath with matching traveling boots and as an accessory a dark green bandanna covering his hair and tied at the back of his head.

"Oy men! We've got ourselves some targets! Grab yer swords and axes and take yer position. A round on me once we mug these kids proper good!" he yelled as he raised his two sheathed swords into the air, rallying the men whom responded in kind.

The childhood friends were still talking away as they made their way through the forest, ever as relaxed. "I still say that it was cheap-" Karis suddenly stopped, clamping her arms around her body, shaking lightly whilst she stared down at the ground.

"Karis? Are you-" Matthew said as both he and Tyrell had stopped walking and looked back at her, but Tyrell interrupted him before he could finish his sentence.

"Are you alright? Whats wrong?" the Mars adept said as he took a step towards her and laid his hand on her shoulder. Cheap anger accumulated in Matthew as he shot a glare at Tyrell for that.

Before any of them could ask further about it though, they were interrupted by a loud and brash voice.

"So. Thats them kids then?" A man was standing a few meters behind Matthew and Tyrell, two sword sheaths on his side, a bandanna on his forehead and his arms crossed across his chest. Two more appeared from behind some trees and bushes on the left side. Matthew turned around to them, being dwarfed by all three of them.

"Did you do something to her?" he yelled, but was promptly ignored.

"Yeah, dats dem alright Sash, heheh..." the smaller of the three said. Despite his size, he had a large broadsword hanging from his back, intimidatingly present.

_"Who the cojibbers are these guys.."_ the Venus adept thought. First something is wrong with Karis, and then these guys suddenly jump out? He eyed the group of three over in front of him, acknowledging with a grunt that physically, they were by far superior. Only Tyrell could perhaps stand up to one of them – but just one – purely physically.

"Who are you? Why are you blocking the path?" he yelled out to them, trying again. Sash responded with a broad grin as he raised his chin, looking at the brats in front of him.

"We're just here to relieve ye of some golden weight, boy. Drop your bags and leave or we'll teach ye a lesson your mommy's we're supposed to."

This odd feeling... Whats going on? The sensation kept returning to her every time she thought of it, clear as day. Something ominous. But why? She raised her head again, staring at Tyrell for a few moments before getting her bearings, noticing the three men on the road facing against Matthew, the latter of whom had grabbed the handle of his sword on his back. _"Wait, whats going on?"_ she thought, and voiced to Tyrell. But before she got any answer, he had moved away from her and grabbed his broadsword from his back, pulling it outright out of it's sheathe with no regards for possibly getting away without fighting.

There was something going on in the distance with the others and Amiti and Rief had come to a standstill just far enough around the bend to see what was going on. An odd scenery if any, two of their friends were drawing their weapons on people in front of them where it's usually the other way around.

"Trouble?" Amiti looked at Rief with an uncertain look.

"Looks like it, no use standing here, let's go!" Rief responded with vigor, he seemed thrilled to the young prince to be running into possible danger.

"So. You're planning on mugging us, is that it? You've got the wrong 'merchants' alright." Matthew spoke to the bandits, supported by Tyrell.

"Yeah, if you don't want to get your arses kicked you'd better start running now."

"Bah, ye think we're some kind of weak douches kid? Looks like a generation is gonna be chopped off soon fella's! Gyahahah!" Sash responded, yelling to his men that were hiding in the bushes whom stepped out into plain sight. Matthew pulled out his sword as well, now looking more concerned than confident – they bandits outnumbered them three to one and at least half of them looked like trouble.

At that time, Amiti and Rief approached over the road, joining the other three adepts, sword and staff already drawn for the fight.

It wasn't the smartest idea Matthew had ever had. There was quite a bit of risk involved, but he did know that that which he could gain from it outweighed what he could lose to it. Everyone could be injured. As their leader, he felt obliged to prevent that if he could. And well, what better way to prevent a fight where they were outnumbered?

"Wait! You. Your name is Sash, right? What about it? ... How about a one on one fight?" Matthew asked, treading on dangerous ground. He was challenging one of the bulkiest men he had ever seen to a straight out fight. It was a crazy idea, but it was one he thought he could manage. A straight out battle between them all would be disastrous not only for themselves, but also for the direct surroundings. He could already imagine the all consuming flames Tyrell would be forced to launch... The floods Amiti and Rief could cause together. And with this plan he could catch two flies in one blow.

_"What in-?" _Tyrell had been caught completely off guard. What the elements was he thinking! Challenging him to a one on one. That idiot! What good could possibly come from this? They were much stronger together than apart, even when outnumbered.

There was no logic the Mars adept could fathom as an excuse for Matthew's decision, this was stupid bordering on the insane, with a doubt!

"What's this eh? Ye want to fight the big boss on yer own then? Yeh've got it kid. Hope ye know what yer getting yerself into." Sash responded, pulling both of his swords out of their sheaths and pointed the right handed sword directly at Matthew as a means to intimidate. The two men next to Sash backed away to a distance and Matthew stepped closer, distancing himself from his friends.

"Winner takes all." Matthew said as he took a ready fighting stance, sword in two hands and in front of him as he got ready for the fight. "But you're not getting anything." Neither of them moved and everyone was as silent as mouses as the air grew thick with tension.

Sash made the first move, as much as Matthew had anticipated. The Venus adept stepped forward as Sash reached him, slashing his sword down fervently from the top right, forcing Sash to block with both of his swords. For a moment the two were locked together, sword against swords as a duel of strength commenced. Sash briefly stepped back, loosening his force on the lock between their swords – presumably to gain a better stance. No better opportunity than this, Matthew took his left hand off his swords hilt and raised it far above his head. The ground shook before a round pillar, one and a half foot in diameter, shot out from the ground, and hit Sash straight in the stomach. Bullseye! Sash was sent flying through the air, clearly in pain but he recovered himself, landing on both of his feet and sliding a few feet over the earth as he eyed what just happened.

"Ye've got some nasty tricks kid. Adept eh? Guess thats why yeh thought yeh could take me... Too bad for ye that that ain't the case!"

Sash shot out from where he was standing. The other thugs grinned wickedly as Sash dashed a good thirty meters in just two seconds. With two outward slashes, the pillar Matthew had created was no more. And with two corresponding inward slashes, the two found themselves clashing swords again, Matthew's sword pinned protectively in front of him.

Things were not in his favor – in fact, this was just completely insane. He was _flying_ through the air, his feet weren't even touching the ground! How was this supposed to be fair? Sash was using so much force in the blow that he was lifted up from his feet altogether and he had lost his footing entirely. He didn't know for how long that lasted, it took but a moment to pass the others, they barely kept up in turning their heads. Not long after that, Sash stopped, the thug pressed his feet against the ground, stopping his own forward motion as their swords disconnected.

Finally, now he could get back to a position he could fight from again... When he stops flying that is. He was still flying though. And just as he questioned the overly extreme force behind the blow causing him to fly near horizontal for more than a few seconds, he stopped.

Like lightning on a clear day, he hit the tree dead on and full force. First his back, then his shoulders, followed by his legs violently slamming into the bark of the tree and then his arms bending further than he thought was possible – his sword flying off elements knew where – followed almost in sync by his head bashing against the tree. The pain, the shock, and the immobility. From the moment Sash started dashing, it couldn't have taken more than twelve seconds.

Slowly gravity peeled his body off of the tree, taking pieces off bark along with him in his clothes. He collapsed onto the ground below, falling on hands and knees as he coughed up blood. A quick trickle of blood started to seep out of the back of his head, through his hair, down his neck and onto his chin, regularly dripping down and granting the grass an ominous shade of red. That wasn't all he had gained from that though, his legs were shaking. He figured it understandable to be shaking after a blow like that, but he couldn't even feel the fact that they were shaking. They had simply gone numb. The blow knocked him down good and he couldn't feel his legs at all, only his upper thighs were still working and boy did they hurt.

She couldn't believe her eyes. The shock had her dumbstruck and stuck on the spot. She wanted to scream at this, she wanted to do something – anything. But she was nailed to the ground, just like all the others. It was just too quick for her brains to accept this sudden feed of information.

That was Matthew. And that was definitely a tree. So that meant he had just flown straight into a tree. She now wanted to run, run to him and help him, but everything was going so fast that she forgot to walk to him.

Rage quickly consumed the young Mars adept, his blood pumped and he clenched his fists tightly. Tyrell found himself quickly moving towards Sash, drawing his sword again with nothing but the worst intentions. Amiti stopped him, a few meters in. It disgusted Tyrell, the look in Amiti's eyes... He knew what to do in this situation, even he knew to stand back and have faith in Matthew yet here he was, his best friend not even considering the consequences for even a moment. It disgusted him that someone whom barely knew Matthew was making such non verbal demands off of him... But he knew he was right. Attacking Sash know would cause everything to come crashing down. His anger subsided and he sheathed his sword once again.

He should have more trust in Matthew than this. It was the roughest wake up call he'd ever had, when did he stop trusting Matthew? They'd been the best of friends. In the past he would've climbed down a rope into a canyon if Matthew was the only thing holding that rope up. He knew he was jealous every time him and Karis were alone together, or just having fun together all the same. It nibbled at him but he had no idea it had gone so far that his trust in him had waned. He knew he had become jealous of his own friend, defying all logic that he had his own moments alone with her all the same. There was nothing special about them. Still, there was hardly another explanation for it, it couldn't have started more than a month ago, maybe two, at best. It was a disgrace to himself, he hated himself, despised himself for it. He was turning on his best friend. Or at least that was the direction he was taking at this rate.

But even with all that, was it truly the best thing to do, to just leave him like that to his own devices?

It didn't matter though. He'd have to force his way through Amiti which would be an utterly useless effort seeing what that'd turn into. By all intents and purposes, it'd go against all his own morale values and he'd be scorned by everyone, Karis included of course. The latter held more than enough weight to him to force him to have restraint for a change. He stepped back again, acknowledging that Amiti was right.

He coughed up a good handfull of blood. A small internal bleeding, he figured. It wasn't a lot of blood though as it was mostly saliva colored red by the blood. His legs were slowly recuperating, he could move them again but it still felt sluggish, and now that the numbness was gone he could feel the pain in his legs as well, a horrible pain as if his legs were burning away slowly.

Slowly he stood back up, pushing the pain away as best he could. First he pushed himself up on both hands, then one foot on the ground, then another. Before long he was standing up again. He didn't understand why but his senses were heightened. He could feel the entire area around him. As if he could see with sonar waves he knew his sword was five and a half meters to the right behind him**. **

He formed a fist with his right hand and with one short powerful motion sideways and a release of psynergy, the ground beneath his sword rocketed up two meters, slinging the weapon straight into Matthew's waiting hand from behind. He was in sync with his element.

Oddly, he had all the time of the world. Sash was swinging his arms around to stretch his muscles as if he was preparing for the most casual morning jog of his life. He probably thought he had already won the battle with that blow. He was almost correct.

It wasn't a complicated plan, he'd just have to use his best psynergy move to finish this in one go. Risky, because he would be too tired to try anything else afterwards, but he didn't have much else of a choice. A melee fight was entirely to his disadvantage against someone of his skill.

"Come on kid," Sash provoked him. "Next move is yours. See it as gift, from me."

He would have but one attempt at this. He had to do this right. A great deal of things coursed through his mind. What would happen if he didn't win? Would they actually kill him? What would happen to the others? What would happen if he won? Would the other bandits keep their promise?

_Would Karis be alright?_

But these thoughts faded as he began the process of channeling the brunt of his remaining psynergy into a single attack. Matthew raised his sword in his right hand over his right shoulder and rested it on it. He lifted his left hand up, the palm towards Sash. In short bursts of concentrated energy, his clothes began to wave on the currents of psynergy in and around him. Smoothly going up and down and rippling the fabric, his hair and his very surroundings.

He had enough of watching the kid performing his tricks and Sash rushed forwards towards Matthew swords drawn and with the clear intention of gutting him a fatal wound. But he was too late to stop it now. With a single burst of energy, four swords launched forth from the skies above Matthew at Sash whom, unable to see them, got hit by all four. Each of them immobilized one of Sash's limbs, the swords of psynergy stuck in the ground with his limbs stuck inside them. He yelped out in pain and surprise, trying to use force to free himself. It was not over though. Matthew put both of his hands on the handle of his sword as it still rested on his shoulder. He pushed it back a bit, now holding the sword behind his back before he slashed it down in front of him in a mighty swing with all his power. The blow scorched the grass below him and in between them two in a golden flash of psynergy as a gigantic sword struck down from the sky, straight into Sash's chest. And though the sword was but psynergy and therefore didn't actually injury his body, he passed out within moment from the intense pain, utterly defeated. Slowly, Sash slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Everyone else stared in shock at what had just happened; the brigands looked at their leader falling to the ground and unsure if he was even still alive; the adepts looking in both shock and awe at Matthew and his attack, the magnitude of the release of psynergy leaving a deep impact on them. None of them had ever experienced so much psynergy being released in one go, not even from their parents.

Everything went silent, a grayish darkness if described in colors. Matthew's vision began to blur, his eyes becoming unfocused. Not a moment later, his legs buckled and he fell onto one knee. And then hands and knees as his last footing slipped away from under him. Wheezing and gasping for air, his limbs held no more strength to keep him up. Just using his arms as support to keep his body up was a battle in itself.

Matthew looked up, managing to lift his head for just long enough to recognize multiple shoes and boots running towards him. And then, he collapsed, his arms finally buckled as well and he fell onto the ground. He could just hear the shuffling of feet close by him, faint murmuring and just before his lights went out, he felt soothed and comforted by something both close and familiar.

He was lying close to the edge of a cliff. A dense forest of trees surrounded a small open area with tree trunks left and right behind him. Foresters he figured. There was a tent in the middle of th area, around ten meters from him. He quickly got up and as Matthew moved closer to it he felt a sensation he could not describe, anxiety, fear, excitement and happiness all mixed together to make one muddy mix.

As he drew closer he noticed a form on the ground. It was a person with blue hair wearing a dark red shirt- or no, the shirt was not red of itself but was tainted red – by blood. He wanted to turn to body around face up, see whom it was but his body was frozen. It wouldn't move as he wanted it to, only in a specific direction. It was as if he was possessed, forced to watch something he did not want to.

The tent seemed just as far as before and again as he drew closer, he saw more bodies on the ground and covered in blood. He recognized Amiti by the crown that had fallen from his head and Tyrell by his red hair. The other one must have been Rief then he concluded.

Unlike Rief whom only showed blood, Tyrell was more clearly killed... A large axe stuck out of his back but no matter how much he tried to look, his eyes wouldn't focus on it.

He wanted to scream at this point, to do something but not just stand there and watch. But whatever controlled him, it took pleasure in forcing him to watch his friends dead.

He turned his attention to the tent. There was a figure sitting on his knees behind the canvas. He didn't even need to rationalize anything at all. He recognized Karis within that same second. She turned her face towards him and he could recognize tears rolling down her face. He still couldn't move, no matter what he tried.

Suddenly, everything around him was ablaze. The tent, the trees. Even the ground felt hot and the air was thick with smoke within seconds. Karis grasped the tent canvas, screaming, tears rolling down her cheeks. And he was forced to watch. He just wanted to scream.

He sat up straight as he woke up in an adrenaline filled rush, breathing so heavy that he thought he could faint any second. Multiple sweat drops trickled down his hair and onto the bed sheet he was underneath. He couldn't breathe for the first few seconds, saving him from waking other people up luckily but he hadn't realized that just yet. When he finally got his bearings, he realized he was in a large stone room with a small candle in the left back side burning on a writing desk. Next to it, between it and the far wall, was a large wooden wardrobe. Above the writing desk was a slightly opened window from which a cool breeze filled the room. On the other side of the room, a thick wooden door rested closed within the wall. He could make out the faint figure of a key inside the lock of the door.

He remembered falling unconscious at the end of the fight or at least what his memory would permit. If he wasn't in the afterlife now, then that must've meant he won. And he was brought to wherever they were right now. And if he was still alive and now in a bed, then that just now must have been a nightmare.

Matthew tried to look around further, but felt a tug at his right leg. Looking down, he saw a sight that made his heart skip a beat – maybe even two in fact. Karis had fallen asleep on a chair next to his bed, and was resting her head on his lap, her face towards his. A few of the strains of her loose hair hung over the front of her face and she breathed in ever so frailly through her slightly opened mouth. He started to calm down, his breathing slowed down but his heart rate did not drop. He smiled so wide and he just wanted to cry, knowing that it had just been a dream and that she was okay.

He stroke her hair shakily. He felt so enamored by her and suddenly it made everything make sense.

He really liked her. Actually, he might just love her.

**Author's Note:**

YESH! A new REAL chapter. Well. Sort of. Yeah, definitely!.. At least it got close..! I'm going to stop doing this now.

My goal in this chapter was to have Matthew fight an awesome (enoough) fight which he'd, clichéd, only just win. I don't know if I succeeded honestly. It's easy to imagine a five hundred move ninja battle in a forest but just -try- to bring that into words,I dare you! **;**_.._**;**

It wasn't the plan originally to have Matthew pass out. I had planned him on actually being live and awake to be all chivalric towards Sash but, in the end, it just felt better. Maybe another cliché but hey, if you don't like it, go read one of the other non-existent stories, HAH! Actually that's a lie, there's another one of equal length, if half the length per chapter. "**If I only had you"** on for those that want to read it. Just... Be careful. It's a bit cracky, especially at the start.

I'm performing collaborative work atm with an -amazing- artist, Jennax3 on Deviantart. If you read my "Time for School" story, -that-. Sort of.

Oh yeah!

It was Sash being a reference to Zoro. Roronoa Zoro: .

*****Nerdgasme* Can't be more bad ass than that... Except for Whitebeard and Luffy. Whom are the epitome of badassery. I decided to keep the mouth katana out of Sash's fighting since... Well, I still don't see how that works. xD

I don't have much else to say honestly. I have my fourteen weeks of freedom now which means I've got a lot of free time. I did make a CRAP LOAD of obligations in the weeks running up to this though... You know, promising to do stuff on WoW, working out again, working more at my dads. It's kind of hectic to try and figure out what to do when so stuff is going slow. Here's to hoping nothing goes horribly wrong :P speaking of horribly wrong, I really need to update the back up of my story folder... Done! Awesome.

Well, don't forget to leave a review, it's heaven on Earth for a writer even if you don't have anything smart to say :D Which is, might I add, half the Internet - good god.

Also, yes, a rag is a collective term for horses (colts).

So I'll see you guys, in chapter SEVEN. Or 6.5. Or a short story.

I'm not very consistent, am I?

BYEEEEEE!


	8. Chapter 7: The Story of Torgos

Author's Note: This is the first part of chapter 7. I couldn't think of how to finish what I had after the ending here so I instead opted to upload this now rather than postpone even more.

If you've paid the slightest attention to my journals or my profile entries you'll know my current situation. If you haven't and are interested, it shouldn't be too hard to find it from where you are now.

That's all I have to say. Enjoy.

Chapter Seven: The Story of Torgos.

A valley town close by Passaj by the name of Torgos.

The group had spent the past week in the local inn of Torgos, renting the cheapest rooms. It was a Sunday now and the weather was stormy. The wind had been banging the windows for two days in a row now and the rain was torrential, pouring down at unpredictable intervals. Both locals and travelers were forced to remain indoors even when it was calming down in fear they might be caught outside in the rain. The downtown part of Torgos had been flooded, it's residents seeking refuge in public domains such as the hospital and the town hall.

Matthew woke up in his bed to a calm awakening. He didn't often have that. He was more often than not plagued by nightmares every few nights or else some other reason would wake him up such as monsters.

But ever since he first woke up in the inn it had been a peaceful life for him. He even felt content with it. All his friends were here with him and they were enjoying each day as it came, not worrying about any problematic foes or mountain passages. He shuddered at the very thought of climbing across the mountain pass, he never had liked the idea. But he knew it would not last and as soon as the weather stopped for a good amount of time he would have to call for the continuation of their travels. But at least for now, he enjoyed the peace and quiet this town, even in it's stormy weather, gave him.

His room was on the second floor of the inn. There were four floors in the building, the second one had the cheapest rooms as it was closest to the always noisy bar. The third held the expensive rooms as it was in between any battering by the winds and the noise from downstairs. The fourth was more expensive than the second but significantly cheaper than the third floor rooms.

The room was well-illuminated from the outside and he did not need a candle to see. A few days he had found Karis sleeping on his lap when he woke up which made him realize the fact that he liked her as more than just a best friend. He realized he wanted more than just friendship. He warmed up at the simple thought of his feelings for her and chuckled to himself as he got out of bed.

He yelped weakly as he stepped on the cold floor and lifted his feet off of it to quickly put his boots on before walking.

After putting on some clothes he went downstairs to get a price inclusive meal in the inn's lower floor tavern.

The wind pounded the windows as he went through the door into the tavern. He looked around the spacious, people-filled room. He noticed a large stuffed deer head stuck on the wall as a trophy and decoration. He hadn't seen it before, and was uncertain why he hadn't. He shrugged it off and peered through the room. It did not take him long to find Tyrell and Amiti amidst the crowd of people eating, drinking, talking and cursing. He walked over to them, greeted them with a wave and took a seat on one of the two remaining seats around the table.

"Hey guys, where are the others?" he asked as he waved his hand at the waiter to get his attention.

"Hey Matthew. I know Karis went outside. Apparently she had to give something to someone in town and it couldn't wait until the rain was over. But you'd have to ask Amiti about Rief." Tyrell casually remarked and nudged his head to Amiti.

Amiti joined into the conversation, "Mm. Rief is not feeling very well actually. It did not sound very bad to me but he wanted to stay in bed – just in case." he informed them, inciting a worried frowning look from Tyrell and an even more worried one from Matthew.

He shrugged it off as he remembered the conversation they were in. "Elements no, he's not falling sick today. We can't have anymore delays the way things around going. Amiti, can I count on you to do what you can as his roommate, that he doesn't go sick?"

"Sure." Amiti responded. The group ordered a meal when the waiter finally arrived. Tyrell decided to go for the house cheese complimented by the cheapest bread on the menu, he was careful with his spending coin.

Amiti looked at the rough menu for a moment before ordering a house cheese as well with some salads around it. Matthew thought for a moment, before deciding to go with some of the slightly more expensive loafs of bread with some butter for taste.

Matthew nodded at Amiti as they resumed the conversation and looked back to Tyrell as he put his elbows on the table. "So, when is Karis coming back? Did she say how long she would be out?"

Tyrell leaned back in his chair frowning his face like he always does when he thinks he just heard something more stupid than himself. "She went out an hour ago and no she didn't tell me. Does it matter anyway? She'll be back."

Matthew thought to himself and wanted to answer Tyrell but he noticed someone looking at them attentively. Disturbed he turned around to face him but the man did not look away as he had expected.

"Uhh... Old man, can I help you, or something?" He asked, wondering what reason the man could have to be so interested in looking at them.

"No, I can help you, young boy." The man glared at him for a moment and he realized that the man hadn't been keen on being called old. " You said your friend went outside in this rain, right? Then I suggest you hurry up and find her." Matthew looked at Tyrell and Amiti but neither of them understood it either and they simply shrugged as the old man babbled on. "Ten years ago, during a storm much like this one something horrible happened. I was there, the only one to see it too... Dana, the old waitress at this inn went outside to pass on an order for new chairs to the local carpenter back when everyone hadn't specialized yet... The town was still small and personal back then. Just like how the guards were-"

Matthew interrupted the old man whom had completely forgotten what he was talking about. "What? Old man, get to the point! We don't have all day."

The old man shook his head a few times and sat back into his chair, thinking and seeming ever more senile. "Who's Dana again?" The old man asked.

Tyrell's arm twitched in irritation. He wondered if the old man wasn't simply wasting their time through senile old banter.

He sighed, and opted to help the old man help them with whatever was the point of his story. "Dana, the old waitress remember? Ten years ago?" He suggested with an irritated tone.

The old man immediately lashed back with his head on laughter for whatever reason. "Bwahahaha! Of course, of course! Ah, Dana, yes I remember now. She was delivering the order to the carpenter, whom she was also in love with – love of the town I'll tell you, neither dared confess! - and he took her on a walk to the center of town, a 'business trip' he called it." The old man took a sip of his drink to clear his throat before continuing. "But it didn't go quite well. It had been raining on and off for a few days and it started pouring again, heavier than ever too! I was walking by at that moment with a raincoat on, pretty much everybody had one with them just so they would not get caught out in the rain, the carpenter was sharing his with Dana, might I add, very cheesy. Anyway, I saw this weird glowing things just above the square near Stonestreet, just a block away from here too, that they were walking to. The two of them were too engrossed in their talking to notice. Suddenly the thing started sucking stuff in. I tried to yell to them but by the time they noticed me, they were swooped up, just like old man Bertrand's market stall, bless his soul. Straight up into the sky and poof, gone."

The old man sighed and took it easy for a moment from his story.

Matthew turned to Tyrell whom nodded faintly, they both recognized what the old man had meant by the vortex. No doubt it had been a Psynergy Vortex. And if there had been one there ten years ago then there could be one now again now that they were returning to Weyard once again. And if it had been large enough to devour two grown people wholly, then the dangers it would cause for an adept were horrifying. "Old man," Matthew started talking as he turned back to him. "I'm afraid it's fairly certain that Dana is dead if she was swooped up into that vortex. I hope you don't think she's still alive." The old man looked at him with a preset judging on his face, making him feel as if he had just said something even madder than what the old man was spouting.

"What are you talking about. Dana came back, I mean, she wasn't herself but she came back." Matthew turned his head to Tyrell for a moment, whom shook his own in disbelief.

"How did she come back? Where is she?" Amiti added to the conversation.

"Well, she had lost her memories and ended up taking to the road two weeks later. Sold everything she owned, she did. Don't know what happened to the carpenter though. She didn't even remember him when she came bacl."

Matthew quickly stood up from his chair. "Thanks old man, I don't know if the vortex is back but if there is a chance then Karis is in danger." He turned to Tyrell whom was just about to say he was coming as well, but was cut off by Matthew. "No. You stay here Tyrell. I'm sorry, but you're best suited for this. If Karis comes back before I find her, send some fire into the sky. Neither I nor Amiti can do that. Amiti nodded at Tyrell, backing Matthew's up.

"Fine. You go, take my raincoat so you don't get soaked, yours' ripped after all." Matthew nodded at him and then bee-lined for the coat hangers and the door, going outside the moment he had Tyrell's rain coat on.

Irony willing, in full view of everyone Matthew tripped and fell the moment he came outside, apparently not as prepared as he should have been for just how wet and slippery it was outside. He crawled to his feet and quickly ran around the opposite building towards the square first of all.

He ran the entire way, though it wasn't so far to begin with. The entire way he felt uncomfortable, a sickening, draining feeling. He'd felt this before, but he only remembered one such occassion.

Matthew turned around to corner of a building to the plaza when he felt a sharp pain throughout his body. He staggered, to the wall and tried to regain his bearings. When he looked up he saw it through the pouring rain and lightning. The vortex was there and it wasn't asleep.

Slowly he could feel his psynergy trickling away, even though he was at well over thirty meters from it. This vortex was even bigger than they had encountered in the cave near Tyrell. Much bigger in fact... It was huge, floating in the sky and visibly sucking the air around it into it. A nearby chair was slowly lifted into the sky and went straight through the vortex, engulfed wholly.

He knew that even though she might just as well be here, she did not have to be. Torgos was larger than this square alone and she could be anywhere throughout the entire city. But something, a gut feeling, told him he was right in coming here.

He carefully moved nearer to the square, resisting the increasingly strong pulling bursts from the vortex. He looked around, hanging on to the wall with one hand. But he did not see anyone, or anything for that matter, through the horrendous downpour.

He was considering back tracking to look for Karis elsewhere, but then again, he came out here specifically because he was worried about the vortex catching her off guard. He then heard a voice behind him. He didn't recognize it though. He was so deep into his thoughts that he only noticed the person calling for him when he or she was halfway through speaking. And even then the ever so heavy rain blurred everything to an unrecognizable mess of sound.

Matthew turned on his feet. He had to clench his eyes tightly as the rain was now blowing straight into his face, pelting it hard enough to force him to raise his other arm in front of his head to protect himself.

It was Tyrell. "Matthew. Putting the giant vortex aside for now, I already shot up five flares! Karis is back at the inn, she was all the way across the town from this square!" Tyrell semi-yelled to him over the rain. "But, what are we going to do about _that_?"

Matthew glanced behind him, saving his face the pelting rain. He had no idea what to do, neither of them did. Only their parents understood how to remove vortexes and they had never taught them. And even if they had, this might just have been too much for them nonetheless.

"I don't know, let's go back to the inn, we'll talk there!" He yelled back.

They both quickly retraced their steps to the inn, coming back completely soaked. Matthew had a raincoat on, so he wasn't bothered, and neither was Tyrell whom vaporized the water straight off of his body and clothes. The fun of being a Fire Adept...

The two of them sat down at the table with Karis and Amiti.

Tyrell gruffly interrupted, not caring for the present conversation. "I brought him back. Like I said, he hadn't noticed the flares."

Karis snapped towards him like only she could. "Oh really, or is that, like I said, it just didn't work in the rain because they weren't large enough? I warned you about that... Besides, we're talking here!"

Matthew sighed, he had to tell them both about the vortex and he didn't have the time to wait with that either. "Umm, everybody listen. There's a vortex close by. In the town, just above a square not three streets away." Karis looked at him, first in confusion before turning to a light dye of shock. He didn't give her a chance to talk so she just nodded as he continued on. "Now I don't know what we can do, it's the biggest vortex any of us have probably ever seen and... Well, seeing how we don't even know how to deal with vortexes to begin with, I'm not sure if there's anything we can do here."

"So what you're saying is," Karis said, "that we should do nothing and pretend there's nothing there, despite the fact that if **anyone** can stop it it's us?"

The wind pounded and pulled on the building harder, stronger almost by the seconds. The rain was now falling at an incredible angle as lightning struck ground closer than comfortable.

The young prince adept shifted back and forth on his seat during the awkward silence that ensued. Finally he spoke up, no longer being able to handle the curiosity he had.

"So, what is a 'Vortex' anyway?"

Everyone else at the table looked at him as if he'd just asked where he could find some mud for his mud pie. After a moment though they remembered that it was only obvious if he didn't know anything about them. Tyrell cut to the chase and was the first to respond, "Well they're like big swirly things that will suck you dry." He sat back against the back of his chair with a smug look on his face, probably overestimating how well he had done his explanation. Karis only narrowly prevented herself from giving him the usual smack that she does when he says something stupid.

Matthew, breathed out loudly to catch attention and coughed twice to make it even more obvious.

"What he was trying to say, was that the vortexes are dangerous psynergy sucking things. They swirl, yeah, and they suck your psynergy out. But they also suck things close by in, not just psynergy and as far as we know touching one is... Deadly, the old man's tale aside." He eyed down for a moment, noticing the plates had apparently long been moved away by the waiter. He continued as he rose his head again "That's all we know. Our parents know more, but they never told us anything about it."

Amiti nodded a several times throughout the explanation, taking it all in more easily than they'd imagined. After all, vortexes aren't your everyday story material.

Before anyone could continue however, a sudden shock shot through the building, causing glass to fall to its untimely demise on the floor as well as causing the mounted deer head to slip out of it's position and fall onto one of the bartenders, injuring the man. Several others, including customers, sped to help him and quickly carried him back whilst a mob of others ran outside to see what was going on.

None of them had even stood up yet when the second shock hit the inn. The windows shattered under the pressure and the old timers still on their chairs were quick to fall off of them, all but one, the one whom had warned them to begin with. The old man stood up, and quietly made his way outside, not a soul minding him.

Karis yelped as the second shock hit them, grabbing onto the table to not fall off. Tyrell even had to stand up to brace himself on his legs, his chairs sliding straight out from under him. What everyone had in common during that moment though, was the realization. It was caused by the vortex. The vortex had grown, It now extended **so** far that they could feel it from the inside of the inn. As if on cue, the three adepts looked at their leaders whom responded like a well trained sergeant to troops in trouble.

"Tyrell, get Rief, bring him to the northern exit of the city. Take the long way so you don't get near the vortex. Keep him safe." Matthew barked.

Tyrell nodded with a much too soft 'on it' for the noise and screaming going on around them to actually be eligible, but it didn't matter. He rushed towards Rief's room, quickly out of both sight and mind alike as the remaining adepts turned to what to do next. Matthew quickly asserted that they had to see the vortex in person to know what to do and the three of them promptly made their way to the square

They went through the massive amounts of people running back and forth through the city streets. People were everywhere, some injured, though most were fine for now. One unfortunate woman had fallen from the top floor window as she was looking outside after the first shock. Two men were lifting her up to carry her away as they passed.

It did not take them long to reach the plaza. What they found there, struck fear into their very beings. What could be considered the anti-adept had grown to two times the size of before. The closest house had been almost completely ripped off of it's foundations already, only a few logs clung on to the ground, swirling madly at the rhythm of the vortex.

Amiti looked at the scenery with a terrified face. "This... This is horrible. This is the vortex?" He asked, knowing full well that there was nothing else that could be it.

"Yeah..." Matthew answered. "But it's grown... Within those few minutes it became twice the size. Wait, if it's that fast... Elements, it's going to overtake the entire city if it doesn't stop growing!" Matthew panicked at the realization. They were the only ones whom knew what these vortexes did. "Amiti! We have to warn the townspeople! Go to the town hall and warn the mayor to evacuate, pull some princely strings if you have to. Karis, come with me, we're going to try to save as many people as we can." He gave the orders fluidly and expertly. He had really come a long way since the start of their journey.

Amiti yelped a nervous 'okay' and quickly made his way to the town hall. Karis and Matthew circled around the square, warning everyone they came across to head out of the town.

A few minutes passed before the city bells tolled, the sign to evacuate the city. In a panicked rush, everyone but Karis and Matthew made their way out of the city. By now, the vortex had grown to the size of a large fountain. It had already destroyed all the houses around the square by now and the actual square was all but gone.

Only Matthew and Karis remained to face it now...

**A dramatic 'To be continued' implying a cliffhanger which is totally unneccesary but still done without a care for the wishes of the readers.**


End file.
